Kansas City BBQ sauce - make it yourself

Commercial Products vs Home-made

Far too many of the BBQ sauces that you find on supermarket shelves are of poor quality. Various forms of not-so-healthy sugars and starch-based fillers make up the bulk of the ingredients fount in the products available commercially. When you go to a real BBQ joint, however, you'll find that more often than not, they offer at least a couple of sauces in their condiment selection that are made in-house. The reason is that they are far better tasting and the pit-boss can control what's in there to align with the specific style of BBQ meats offered at that particular establishment.

That being said, there are some good brands of sauces out there but you really need to pore over the ingredients list to make that judgement. One of the worst things you'll find on that list is any sugars derived from corn, especially 'high fructose corn syrup'. That stuff is deadly - quite literally. Research has shown that it is directly responsible for an increase in obesity rates, heart disease, diabetes, fatty liver disease, inflammation, etc. and, because it's an artificial sugar derived from corn, has no essential nutrients tagging along for the ride like regular glucose has.

Cane sugar and turbinado sugar are slightly better products, from a health point of view, in that they contain trace amounts of essential nutrients or even antioxidants, although of minimal value. Either way they are more natural and less harmful than the corn syrup products.

Here's a recipe for my home-made Kansas City style BBQ sauce. You can source out a cane-sugar based ketchup to try to eliminate any corn syrup:

Kansas City Style BBQ SAUCE

2 c. ketchup

2 c. tomato sauce (passata)

1 1/4 c. brown sugar

1 1/4 c. red wine vinegar

1/2 c. unsulfured molasses

1 t. onion powder

1 t. cayenne pepper

1/2 t. chili powder

2 t. hot smoked paprika

1 t. celery seed

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

2 T. butter

1 t. kosher salt

1 t. garlic powder

2 t. coarsely ground pepper

4 t. hickory-flavoured liquid smoke

Heat molasses in warm water before starting. Add molasses to a large saucepan over medium heat, then mix together the ketchup, tomato sauce, brown sugar, wine vinegar, liquid smoke, and butter; bring to a boil. Season with garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, paprika, celery seed, cinnamon, cayenne, salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for up to 20 minutes. For thicker sauce, simmer longer, and for thinner, less time is needed. Sauce can also be thinned using a bit of water if necessary. Brush sauce onto any kind of meat during the last 10 minutes of cooking.