This Homemade Barbecue Sauce is easy to make and so much more delicious than store bought (better ingredients and fewer preservatives). A kitchen staple, it’s perfectly seasoned, and it has the perfect balance of sweet and savory flavors. You can have the best homemade BBQ sauce in just 10 minutes using just a few ingredients! Try it on ribs, steak, grilled chicken, pulled pork and burgers. You can even use it to make BBQ chicken pasta salad!
For more homemade sauces, try our recipes for enchilada sauce, chimichurri sauce, tzatziki sauce and pizza sauce. And don’t miss our cola barbecue sauce recipe too.
Fun BBQ Facts:
- The top 3 countries for best barbecue in the world are USA, Argentina and Brazil.
- The top 3 states for the best barbecue are Tennessee, Texas and Missouri.
- Texas has 2,238 restaurants devoted to BBQ.
- There are 4 main regional styles of barbecue in the United States: Carolina, Kansas City, Memphis and Texas.
- Kansas City is the barbecue capital of the world.
- The most common sides to serve at a barbecue are corn, potatoes and vegetables.
- The first BBQ sauce dates back hundreds of years, and it started as a simple vinegar and pepper-based sauce.
- McDonald’s was originally a barbecue drive-in, called “McDonald’s Bar-B-Que.”
- Kansas City Barbecue in San Diego was featured in the movie Top Gun when Goose and Maverick sing “Great Balls Of Fire” and Meg Ryan yells, “Goose you big stud!”
Ingredients Needed:
- Neutral-Flavored Oil: Use canola, vegetable or avocado oil.
- Onion: I like to use sweet onion. Mince it finely so you don’t have big chunks of onion in your barbecue sauce.
- Garlic: Use fresh garlic, and you’ll be chopping it finely.
- Ketchup: Whatever ketchup you have in your fridge- use that.
- Brown Sugar: For a fun twist, substitute blackberry or blueberry jam for the brown sugar.
- White Vinegar: Substitute cider vinegar if you need to.
- Worcestershire Sauce: Coconut aminos is a good sub for the Worcestershire.
- Chipotle Powder: This will add a little heat to the sauce, but since there’s quite a bit of sweet then it all balances out quite nicely.
How to make Homemade Barbecue Sauce:
The complete, printable recipe is in the recipe card at the end of this post.
Heat oil in a saucepan. Add minced onion and garlic, and cook until sizzling. Add ketchup, brown sugar, white vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and chipotle powder. Simmer for about 8 minutes. That’s it!
The Homemade Barbecue Sauce will thicken slightly and be ready for use!
Recipe Tips:
- This recipe is easy to double, if you want to make a lot of homemade barbecue sauce. Just double all of the ingredients in the recipe.
- This sauce thickens on its own, and you do not need to add any thickeners such as cornstarch.
- Mix in a little bit of water if you want to thin out the sauce.
- Add a teaspoon of liquid smoke if you prefer a super smoky flavored barbecue sauce.
How to store homemade BBQ sauce:
This barbecue sauce will last in your refrigerator for about 2 weeks. Store it in a jar or any kind of sealed container. Use it up as the desire for Sweet and Smoky Barbecue Sauce strikes!
Homemade BBQ sauce can also be frozen for up to three months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before using.
History of Barbecue:
According to Planet Barbecue, a human ancestor called Homo Erectus began cooking meat with fire 1.8 million years ago.
After Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, Spaniards found natives of the Caribbean roasting meat over a makeshift grill of wooden sticks above a fire. The smoke and fire rose to cook the meat and give it a smoky, distinct flavor. The English word “barbecue” comes from the Spanish word “barbacoa.”
Barbecuing was pretty common around the turn of the 18th century with British and Spanish colonists cooking meat BBQ-style along the Eastern coast. We attribute barbecue as having originated in the Eastern colonies- with Virginia and North Carolina being among the first regions to barbecue.
Barbecue became very popular in the 1950’s when black-owned barbecue restaurants began popping up all over America.
Homemade Barbecue Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons neutral-flavored oil (avocado, canola or vegetable oil)
- 1 small sweet onion, minced
- 2 medium garlic cloves, chopped finely
- 1 cup ketchup
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2 teaspoons chipotle powder
Instructions
- Place a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the oil.
- Place the onion and garlic in the hot oil and cook until they sizzle.
- Now add the remaining ingredients to the pan and reduce to a simmer. Cook for about 5 minutes. Keep warm for serving.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
