Make Your Own BBQ Sauce - It's Easy - It Taste Better - You Control What Is In It - It Doesn't Cover the Meat Flavor - It Enhances It

Homemade BBQ Sauce

Enhance The BBQ and Your Cooking Reputation

Crazy About Them

The first time we cooked ribs for friends they went crazy happy. Helen and I are good cooks, and she takes advantage of her Texan roots, but the Barbecue Sauce was the real star.

People loved the blend of tangy sweetness. It was such a hit, we prepared and gave out bottles for Christmas.

You spend hours preparing the meat and sitting around the BBQ, while the “low and slow” does its magic and makes a hunk of meat into a special occasion. Don’t mask the taste with some stuff that has been sitting on the supermarket shelf. Make your own BBQ sauce. A sauce that enhances flavour rather than hide it.

This is a simple sauce but it ticks all the boxes. In all the years we have been making it the only complaint we had is about the times we didn’t make it. Some of The Boxes It Ticks

• The actual preparation time is short; less than 15 minutes
• The cooking time is about 35 minutes (you are required to stir occasional)
• You control the taste: make it sweeter, adjust how tangy it is, add some heat
• You can prepare it a day or 2 ahead of time, it will taste even better. Refrigerate it.
• You can still use your favorite rub.
• 
  

Recipe

Grandpa BBQ Sauce

(from Great-Grandpa’s Notes)

1 cup ketchup

1 cup white vinegar, a lot of people think it is better with Apple Cider Vinegar

½ cup dark corn syrup (In Australia we use Golden Syrup. Corn Syrup is hard to find. Taste great with either and better to avoid High-Fructose Corn Syrup)

2 teaspoons brown sugar

¼ cup molasses

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon tabasco sauce (use the amount that best suits you and your guest)

See the Video

Make it Your Sauce

You can add some other ingredients to give it the taste you want. That will make it your own signature BBQ sauce. 
A few suggestions:
Mustard

Tamarind puree

Paprika sweet, hot, Hungarian, or smoked

Pineapple juice
Orange – squeeze in some juice

Experiment with any spice you like.

Smokey Taste: you could add some liquid smoke but I prefer smoked chipotles or smoked paprika. Better yet, if cooking in a smoker,  a Weber, or covered BBQ put the finished sauce in a small pot that will handle the heat, I use a small size cast iron pot, and let it cook in the smoke for about 10 or 15 minutes.   

Healthier - Yes and No - or - Yes/But
Look this is BBQ I’m not implying that it is health food. Heck the main ingredient is probably going to be meat. the food might be cooked over coals, the sauce has sugar from 3 different sources, salt, and maybe smoke. 

But if you want to enjoy some tasty barbecue this is better than using stuff off the store shelf. Would be better if you make your own ketchup, but that is a whole different story
You know what goes in it and we all know that the less machines and hands that touch our food the better off we are. Always a good idea to eat the least processed food you can.

Advertising tries to convince us that cooking is a drag. It isn’t, it can be fun and the more you make your on food the better off you and your family will be.

If you have any questions just post in the comments. You can comment anonymously.

Next post & video will feature apulled pork, using this sauce

All The Best
Grandpa Larry