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Basic Barbecue Sauce Recipe

Basic Barbecue Sauce
Difficulty: Easy | Total Time: 45 mins, plus cooling time | Active Time: | Makes: 2 1/3 cups

This simple sauce is fabulous on everything from chicken to sandwiches.

INGREDIENTS
  • 1 1/2 cups ketchup
  • 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 3 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
  • 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon celery salt
  • 1/2 cup water
INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring until ingredients are completely incorporated. Reduce heat to low and gently simmer until flavors have melded and sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 30 to 40 minutes.
  2. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. If not using right away, cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
    Write a review | 19 Reviews
  • Basic Barbecue Sauce Recipe
    5

    What a great starting point for a bbq sauce... as with any recipe, a recipe is mostly a guideline. I tend to prefer sweeter bbq sauces, sometimes with a kick, sometimes not. The first time I made this as written and will make adjustments on subsequent occasions depending on what I feel like and also what meat. Thank You for the foundation, it was excellent!

  • Basic Barbecue Sauce Recipe
    5

    all basic sauces can be added to depending on what you want and your tastes, I took the basic sauce and put in it what my taste buds can handle craftiman

  • Basic Barbecue Sauce Recipe
    4

    Small can of tomatoe paste, same can full of water, same can full of wine or beer, same can full of cider vinegar. Garlic, paprika, cumin, ancho chile. Simmer.

  • nice bbq sauce. 1/2 tsp red pepper adds a nice zing.

  • Use tomato paste instead of ketchup, thin with water, apple juice or stock until it's the consistency of ketchup. Has a better tomato flavor, less sugar or HFCS, depending on your ketchup brand, and is generally much cheaper to make.
    I add a little hickory smoke powder to my bbq sauce, and/or some ancho powder.

  • This sauce ROCKS! I love BBQ, but almost all bottled sauces contain high fructose corn syrup, which plays havoc with my IBS. Last night, when Vanna White gave her recipe for barbied chicken, claiming it was the easiest recipe ever, I had to try it. I whipped up this BBQ sauce this morning, dumped it into a crock pot with a whole chicken, and 5 hours later, voila, the best chicken I've ever had! Vanna, you were RIGHT -- how EASY and how tender and moist and tasty!

  • Sorry, you lost me at "ketchup".

  • i LOVE BBQ chicken, but im REALLY looking for a recipe my GranPap used to make for GRILLED chicken. i know it had beer, worcestershire, butter and lemon pepper, but every time i try it never comes out right.... Any ideas>??? thanks all

  • I make a BBQ sauce from a Bon Appetit recipe from about 30 years ago. Talk about strange ingredients. Most of it is pretty routine but it also calls for Southern Comfort. Having had far too much SoCo in college I was skeptical, but it works wonderfully. Plus, I always know that when I buy a bottle of the stuff it'll last for at least a year. It also calls for peach preserves (although I use mango preserves when I can get them) and fresh squeezed lemon juice. Everyone loves the stuff - I just made baby backs last weekend and once again they were declared by everyone at the dinner as the best ribs they'd ever eaten.

    As for potato salad, mine sucks! No matter what I try it's always awful so I ask a friend, who makes fantastic potato-mac salad, to bring some. I stick with the ribs, cole slaw, tabouleh, and desserts (one chocolate, one with fruit).

  • I agree with hoosier and al b. on this one . . . trying to get folks to agree on what should be in a "good" or "simple" BBQ sauce is like trying to get folks to agree on what goes into potato salad! (Just for the record, I put dill in mine --- the potato salad, not the BBQ sauce ;-)

  • Professor, how much simpler would you wish it to get? True, well done BBQ is about the smoke and the juiciness of the meat and the insanely crispy fat and burnt bits, but sauce is good in a sandwich and chicken, as Kate said.

  • Sounds pretty easy to me!!! No strange ingredients to buy. Looking forward to trying it.

  • This one looks tasty enough but I wouldn't call it a particularly 'simple' sauce.

    Besides, if you do the meat right, you don't need any sauce at all.
    Properly done 'Q doesn't need anything to hide the flavor of the meat.

  • Yum, sounds like an amazing BBQ sauce. Thanks for the recipe.

  • I'm with hoosiercheetah. Basic means basic.
    I'd rather argue middle east politics than BBQ any afternoon.

  • BBQ sauce is one of the most regional, most subjective foods I'm aware of. I don't think I've ever heard two people agree about any given sauce. Bully for Kate Ramos for having the stones to post a recipe about which everyone is sure to have a very strong opinion!

  • sometimes the simplest of food recipies are the best..............This Ain't One Of Them

  • Where are the Lemons or Lemon juice??? I know that this is a basic sauce ,but coming from Alabama this is how we make sauce.
    I know that their are parts all over the south that have there way of making a good BBQ sauce but I have to have LEMON'S.
    Everything is okay but the LEMONS!!!!!

  • This sauce is good as a basic, but a little sweet for my taste.

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