BUILDING A BBQ SAUCE

Basic Components

THE BASE

The base provides the foundation for a barbecue sauce. Common bases for barbecue sauce include:

Ketchup

Tomato sauce/tomato puree/tomato paste

Fresh tomatoes

Chili sauce

Mustard

Vinegar

Chicken or beef stock

Mayonnaise

THE SWEETNERS

Most barbeque sauces have an element of sweetness. Kansas City-style sauces are the sweetest, but even a western North Carolina vinegar sauce contains a little sugar to blunt the edge of the vinegar. Here are some common sweeteners:

Granulated sugar: The common white sugar you use to sweeten your coffee.

Turbinado sugar: A granulated light brown sugar that owes its color to an added trace of molasses. It’s kind of gritty.

Light or dark brown sugar: Sweet with a molasses flavor.

Piloncillo: Unrefined Mexican brown sugar; sold in pyramids or cones. Sweet with an earthy, malty molasses flavor.

Coconut Sugar: Milder and healthier substitute for Light or Dark Brown sugar.

Sucanat: Freeze-dried sugarcane juice; sold in natural food stores. Sweet with a malty flavor.

Honey: Sweet with a floral flavor.

Molasses: Sweet and earthy.

Cane Syrup: Sweet with a rich mouthfeel.

Corn Syrup (light or dark): Less sweet than cane sugar, with a rich mouthfeel.

Maple Sugar/Maple Syrup: Less sweet than cane sugar, with a musky maple flavor.

Rice Syrup: Sold in natural food stores. Less sweet than cane sugar, with earthy malt flavors.

Jams & Jellies: Sweet, fruity flavor.

THE SOURING AGENTS

Every great barbecue sauce contains a souring agent to help keep the sweetness in check. Here are the most commonly used souring agents:

Distilled vinegar: Just plain sour.

Cider vinegar: Acidic with a fruity finish.

Wine vinegar: Acidic with a wine flavor.

Balsamic vinegar: Acidic with a fruity sweetness.

Lemon juice: Tart with a fruity flavor; sometimes whole lemons are added to sauce contributing a bitter element as well as acidic.

Lime juice and sour orange juice: Work in the same way as lemon juice.

Tamarind: Sour-sweet smoky flavor.

Pickle juice: Need I say more?

THE SEASONING

Every barbecue sauce needs a touch of salt to balance the acidity and sweetness:

Salt: In particular, sea salt or kosher salt.

Soy sauce: Salt with an Asian accent.

Fish sauce: Salt with a Southeast Asian accent.

Miso: Cultured soybean paste; available in many colors and flavors. Salt with luscious umami finish.

Hoisin sauce: A thick Chinese condiment that’s both salty and sweet.

Anchovy fillets/paste: An ingredient in many steak sauces.

Capers: The pickled buds of a Mediterranean flowering shrub; salty and tangy.

Olives: Especially salty olives, like Kalamata or Sicilian.

Sun-dried tomatoes: Dried or oil-pickled, your choice.

THE HEAT

A defining element in many barbecue sauces (particularly those from Texas and the American Southwest). Here are some of the ingredients that can help set your sauce on fire:

Hot sauce: Tabasco, for example, owes its distinctive flavor to lengthy aging in barrels. Other favorites are Crystal Hot Sauce and Texas Pete, made here in the United States; Cholula, from Mexico; for a fiery Caribbean-style hot sauce, try Scotch bonnet-based Matouk’s from Trinidad

Fresh chili peppers: From mild jalapeños to torturing ghost peppers and scorpion peppers; pickled chiles such as pickled jalapeños, which add an acidic element as well.

Black and white pepper: Grind it fresh for extra flavor.

Ground cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes: Their heat builds gradually – start easy.

Fresh ginger: Minced or grated.

Mustard: Either prepared or powder.

Horseradish: Either freshly grated or prepared; add it at the last minute, as cooking diminishes its heat and makes it sweet.

Wasabi: A green horseradish-like condiment from Japan. Dissolve the powder in a little cold water to form a thick paste and add it at the last minute as cooking diminishes its heat.

THE AROMATICS

Aromatics give barbecue sauce its personality. Use with restraint; some people – especially guys – think that if a little is good, more is better. However, too much is actually too much, no matter how you cut it:

Onions: Fresh (either raw or sautéed), dried flakes, powder or onion salt.

Garlic: Fresh (either raw or sautéed), dried flakes, powder or garlic salt.

Celery: Fresh, also celery seed and celery salt.

Bell peppers and poblano chiles: Fresh.

Chili powder: Indispensable in Texas.

Herbs: Both fresh and dried. Common barbecue sauce herbs include basil, bay leaf, chives, cilantro, dill, marjoram, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary and thyme.

Spices: Common sauce seasonings include both sweet spices (allspice, anise seeds, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, fennel seed, ginger, mace, nutmeg and star anise) and savory spices (such as caraway seed, coriander, cumin, curry, dill seed, mustard seed, paprika, pepper, saffron, sage, Sichuan peppercorns and turmeric).

Liquid smoke: Dallas’s legendary barbecue emporium, Sonny Bryan’s, actually smokes its barbeque sauce in the pit; the rest of us can add a few drops of this natural product to give barbeque sauce the flavor of wood smoke.

Worcestershire sauce: Salty-sweet and aromatic; contains tamarind and anchovies.

Steak sauce: Salty and tomatoey, with a touch of raisin and orange.

THE ENRICHNERS

A well-conceived sauce not only tastes good, but it also feels good on your palate. That’s where enrichers come in. Animal and vegetable fats will give your sauce a properly luscious mouthfeel.

Butter: Salted or unsalted.

Oil: Olive, sesame, walnut, and hazelnut add flavor as well as richness; vegetable oil is merely rich.

Lard: Traditional fat used for frying Mexican salsas.

Bacon/bacon fat: Adds a rich smokey flavor.

Meat droppings: The secret ingredient in many sauces, including the lip-smacking sauce served at Shorty’s in Miami.

Beef stock/Chicken stock: Adds a rich meaty flavor without fat.

THE WILD CARDS

To be a great sauce maker, you need two attributes of creative genius: inspiration and fearlessness. The former leads to the surprise of unexpected layers of flavors. The later allows you to try adding anything. Some of the stranger sauce ingredients I’ve seen tried before including:

Coffee: Brewed coffee wakes up a barbecue sauce the way a cup of Joe gets you going in the morning.

Soda: Cola, root beer, ginger ale, lemon-lime and orange soda, are all working options.

Wine: Lends a pleasing acidity.

Spirits: Popular spirits for barbecue sauce include bourbon (my favorite), rye, Scotch, brandy, rum and tequila.

Peanut butter: Sounds weird but this is the primary ingredient for Thai and Indonesian sate sauce.

Vanilla extract: Adds an exotic but familiar sweetness.

Water: Despite its lack of flavor, it can help mellow strong flavors and knit disparate flavors together.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: Simply put the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Then, reduce the heat and simmer, stirring just enough to keep it from burning. That’s the great thing about barbeque sauce: You can’t curdle it, scramble it, or break it.

Building Sauces: Services