Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce

Name: Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 60 min
Ingredients: 2 cups tomato sauce; 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar; 1/3 cup bourbon; 1/4 cup maple syrup; 1/4 cup brown sugar; 1 tsp. salt; 1 tsp. pepper; 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper; 2 tbsp. paprika; 2 tbsp. dehydrated minced onion; 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce; 1/2 tsp. Liquid Smoke

Aug 29, 2020

Everything tastes better with sweet and spicy BBQ sauce. You can put it on ribs, burgers, grilled chicken, and even pizza. Homemade sauce is so simple to make, and you can make it fit your palette perfectly. Plus, it costs a lot less than premium bottled barbecue sauce. Once you try this easy recipe, you’ll never buy store brands again. Whip up a big batch and store it in your fridge.

The Core Ingredients for Your Sauce

Sweet and barbecue sauce has two base ingredients–tomato sauce and vinegar.

Tomato Sauce: This is the base. Many recipes call for ketchup, but ketchup has sugar and high fructose corn syrup, which has proven to be both addictive and toxic. Tomato sauce is less expensive and healthier, so it’s an easy decision to choose tomato sauce.
Apple Cider Vinegar: You need acid to give the barbecue sauce its tangy edge. You can use white vinegar, red wine vinegar, or even lemon juice. I prefer apple cider vinegar, though, because it’s the sweetest option and it is a beautiful contrast to the spice.

Make Your BBQ Sauce Sweet and Spicy

After you have the core ingredients, you need to add the spicy and the sweet notes.

Spice: I like to use cayenne pepper for the spicy notes because you can control how hot it is. Fresh jalapenos can deliver great flavor, but there is a wide spectrum of heat in jalapenos. Even if you follow the recipe exactly, it will taste different each time you make it. Cayenne pepper is very predictable.
Paprika: Paprika contributes to depth as well as smokiness. Paprika can be divided into three categories–hot, sweet, and smoked. If it doesn’t give an adjective, it’s sweet. Start with that as then experiment to see what you like.
Seasoning: Since you’re starting with unseasoned tomato sauce, add salt and pepper. You’ll also want to add onions and/or garlic. I like to add homemade caramelized onions, but I don’t always have time. I created this recipe using dehydrated minced onion because it’s a pantry item most people have, and it makes this recipe super simple.
Sweet: You have several options to get your sauce to its desired sweetness. Commonly used choices include maple syrup, brown sugar, and honey. This recipe uses a combination of maple syrup and brown sugar. I like the complexity of maple syrup, but you can easily substitute honey or even pancake syrup if you don’t have honey.

Add Depth to Your Barbecue Sauce

You can make a decent barbecue sauce without adding ingredients from this category. But these are the things that will make your sweet and spicy bbq sauce zing!

Bourbon: This gives it depth and adds to the smokiness. I like to be able to taste the bourbon, so I’m pretty heavy-handed with my pours. Make sure your bourbon is barrel-aged, as the barrel is what gives the smoky flavor. You can substitute Scotch whiskey but rum or vodka are not good substitutions.
Umami: I talk a lot about umami because not everyone knows about it. It is the fifth taste receptor in your mouth, and it has its own neurological receptor in your brain. When activated, food tastes better. Worcestershire sauce is an umami ingredient and the best option for this recipe.
Smoke: Liquid smoke is the easiest way to get the smoky flavor. You’ll also get some of this smokiness from the bourbon and the paprika, but liquid smoke will take your barbecue sauce to the next level.

The Process of Making Homemade BBQ Sauce

There are a lot of ingredients, but don’t let this intimidate you. Most of the ingredients are items you keep in your pantry. If you are missing something, read the list above to see if there is something you can substitute. It takes less than 5 minutes to measure everything and put it in a pan. Then you just stir it occasionally for the next 15-20 minutes as it cooks down. Many homemade barbecue sauce recipes add cornstarch to thicken it, but I prefer to cook it down. This gives it the right consistency while keeping the ingredients on the healthy side. It’s important to use a large saucepan. The reason is you have a large surface area compared to liquid. This enables the sauce to cook down faster. You can make it in a smaller pan, but then you’ll need to increase the cooking time. If you prefer, you can cook it in the slow cooker with the lid off for 1 hours on high or 4 hours on low. It will slowly cook while you’re away. When you return, the sauce should be close to perfect.

Taste the sauce occasionally as you’re stirring it. It should be delicious by itself–a combination of tangy, spicy and sweet. When you taste your sauce, keep in mind that you’ll be adding it to less flavorful food. For example, you’ll be brushing it on chicken or ribs, which are both pretty bland. It may taste too boozy or too spicy when you taste it with a spoon, but once it combines with the protein, it will calm down. If you’re not sure about the spice, put it on a cracker with some cream cheese. This will mimic the final flavor. Adjust any spices early in the cooking process to fit your taste buds.

Ways to Use Your Homemade Sweet & Spicy BBQ Sauce

Once you’ve made the barbecue sauce, you can use it right away or store it in an airtight container in your fridge. When I make a batch, it rarely lasts more than a few days. I mix it with chicken and add it to sandwiches and on pizza. I drizzle it over cream cheese and serve it with crackers at cocktail hour. I’ve also made a delicious pasta with this as the sauce. (I forgot to blog about that one but it’s coming, I promise!)