Homemade Barbecue Sauce, One Pot and 30 Minutes

Name: Homemade Barbecue Sauce
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 35 min
Ingredients: 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup apple cider vinegar; 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce; 1 cup tomato sauce; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; 4 tablespoons onion (chopped); 4 teaspoons garlic powder; 1 teaspoon mustard; 4 tablespoons honey; 1/2 teaspoon paprika; 1 tablespoon pepper (optional, and a tablespoon is a lot)

Brown sugar, cider vinegar, tomato and Worcestershire sauce cooked down for half an hour with onion, garlic, mustard and honey. It keeps in the fridge for weeks and costs a fraction of the bottled kind. Makes two cups.

Total: 35

JUMP TO RECIPE

Brown sugar, cider vinegar, tomato and Worcestershire sauce cooked down for half an hour with onion, garlic, mustard and honey. One pot, five minutes of work, and it makes two cups.

Everything in one pot

There is no browning stage and no order to follow. All eleven ingredients go into the pot together, get stirred, and come to a boil.

Then the heat goes low and it sits there for thirty minutes while water leaves and everything concentrates. That is the entire method, which is why homemade barbecue sauce is worth doing: it takes five minutes of attention and costs a fraction of a bottle.

Stop before it looks ready

A cup of brown sugar and four tablespoons of honey in a pot that will yield two cups is a great deal of sugar, and sugar syrups thicken dramatically as they cool.

Take it off when it still looks slightly thinner than the sauce you want. Cold, it will be right. Cook it until it looks right hot and you will be chiselling it out of the jar.

Stir it now and then

Sugar sinks to the bottom of the pot and sits against the heat. Thirty minutes is long enough for it to catch if nobody is paying attention, and a caught sugar sauce tastes burnt all the way through. There is no rescuing it.

A stir every few minutes, reaching the bottom, is all it needs.

The pepper is optional for a reason

A full tablespoon of ground pepper in two cups of sauce is aggressive, and the ingredient list marks it optional and to taste.

Pepper is a seasoning that can go in at the end. Start low, taste the sauce once it has thickened, and add from there.

More sauces

Colombian ají — the fresh, uncooked one.
Colombian hogao — the tomato and onion base.
Roasted pork ribs — what to put it on.
Barbecue chicken wings — the other obvious use.

Barbecue Sauce FAQ

How thick should it be when I take it off?

Slightly looser than you want it. There is a cup of brown sugar and four tablespoons of honey in two cups of sauce, and sugar sauces set considerably as they cool. A pot that looks right hot will be close to jam cold.

Why does it catch on the bottom?

Sugar sinks. Half an hour of simmering with that much sugar in it needs stirring now and then, and once a barbecue sauce has caught, the burnt taste goes through the whole batch.

Is a tablespoon of pepper really right?

It is a lot for two cups, which is why the recipe marks it optional. Start with a teaspoon if you are unsure: pepper can go in at the end and it cannot come out.

How long does it keep?

Weeks in a clean jar in the fridge. Between a cup of vinegar and a cup of sugar it is well preserved, and the flavour settles after a couple of days.

Can I use ketchup instead of tomato sauce?

It changes the balance. Ketchup already contains sugar and vinegar, both of which this recipe adds in quantity, so you would want to cut back on both.

What is the Worcestershire sauce doing?

Half a cup of it is a lot and it is the savoury backbone. It brings anchovy, tamarind and molasses, which is what keeps a sauce this sweet from tasting like syrup.