We Style-Examined 13 Manufacturers of Barbecue Sauce—Right here Are Our Favorites

I grew up consuming Southern barbecue on the houses of aunts and distant cousins within the Carolinas and rural Virginia. At household reunions, there was virtually at all times a complete hog or a pork shoulder, pit-smoked and cooked low and sluggish in an previous drum over hardwood for hours on finish, till the meat virtually fell aside. It was chopped superb, typically with bits of crackling blended in, and often served on a bun with slaw. The sauce? Lexington-style: sharp and vinegar-forward with simply sufficient sweetness. Regardless of this regional loyalty—and stern warnings from my Uncle Scotty, who manned the pit—the group, often over 200 sturdy, nonetheless insisted on “common” barbecue sauce. The purple, candy variety made well-known in Kansas Metropolis. Even within the land of sugar-shunning barbecue, that smoky-sweet tomato sauce made its approach to the desk.

There are numerous regional barbecue sauce kinds within the US, together with the vinegar-based sauces of Jap and Western North Carolina, the mustard-forward sauce present in South Carolina, Alabama’s creamy mayonnaise-based sauce, and the tangy tomato-based sauces from Memphis and St. Louis. However stroll into virtually any grocery retailer, and you will find that many bottles labeled “barbecue sauce” are Kansas Metropolis–type.

With that in thoughts, we determined to slim down our barbecue sauce style take a look at to Kansas Metropolis-style sauces. To seek out the perfect Kansas Metropolis–type barbecue sauce, our editors taste-tested 16 totally different manufacturers you’re prone to discover at your native grocery retailer, together with a number of sourced instantly from Kansas Metropolis. We tasted each by itself in random order, with out figuring out which model was which. After making our approach by all of the sauces, we tabulated the outcomes and topped an total winner, together with a number of worthy contenders that we’d be blissful to serve at our personal cookouts.

The Standards

A basic Kansas Metropolis–type barbecue sauce ought to have sufficient vinegar to offer a tangy counterpoint to the sweetness of brown sugar or molasses, together with a mild kick of warmth from spices like chile powder, black pepper, or cayenne. The sauce ought to be tomato-based and made with both ketchup or tomato sauce, and may embrace seasonings comparable to garlic powder, onion powder, mustard, and possibly a contact of clove or allspice for complexity. Liquid smoke is commonly used to imitate the flavour of conventional pit cooking, nevertheless it usually tastes obviously synthetic; it ought to provide a touch of smokiness with out overpowering the nuanced flavors of the sauce. Kansas Metropolis–type sauces also needs to be thick sufficient to cling to grilled meats, comparable to ribs or brisket, however nonetheless be fluid sufficient to baste with or drizzle on the facet.

Our Winners: It is a Tie!

Dealer Joe’s Natural Kansas Metropolis Fashion BBQ Sauce

This profitable sauce was essentially the most universally appreciated amongst our tasters and the least offensive to anybody. Jessie, our visuals editor, thought it was well-balanced. Genevieve, our senior editor, described it as “candy, tangy, savory, and never excessively so.” Apart from our editorial director, Daniel, who thought the tomato paste was too dominant, everybody thought it was balanced: It was candy however properly so, with a nice, delicate acidity.

Bull’s Eye BBQ Sauce

This sauce was essentially the most nostalgic-inducing of the bunch; Daniel thought it tasted “like absolute basic bottled barbecue sauce taste.” Amanda, our affiliate visuals director, reward the “stability of spices,” whereas our affiliate culinary editor Laila loved its smokiness. This was a sauce that many people would take to our subsequent barbecue.

Runners-Up

• 365 by Complete Meals Market, Unique Barbecue Sauce
• Cowtown BAR-B-Q Sauce
• Good & Collect Natural Unique BBQ Sauce

All three earned stable scores throughout the board. Whereas none had been fairly as scrumptious as our winners, our editors nonetheless loved every of the sauces above. Complete Meals’ sauce was molasses-forward and customarily thought of to have a balanced taste. Goal’s Good & Collect sauce was a favourite for its basic, brilliant, and tangy barbecue taste and, in keeping with Daniel, can be a good selection for anybody who needs “a extra molasses-y sauce.” Cowtown acquired excessive marks for its complexity and what Laila described as its “wealthy spice taste.” Every had one thing going for it—whether or not it was brightness, spice, or stability—that made them worthy of a spot on the picnic desk.

The Contenders

• 365 by Complete Meals Market, Unique Barbecue Sauce
• Arthur Bryant’s Unique BBQ Sauce
• Buffalo Wild Wings Honey BBQ Sauce
• Bull’s Eye BBQ Sauce
• Cowtown BAR-B-Q Sauce
• Well-known Dave’s Wealthy & Sassy BBQ Sauce
• Gates Unique Traditional Bar-B-Q Sauce
• Good & Collect Natural Unique BBQ Sauce
• Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauce
• KC Masterpiece Unique Barbecue Sauce
• Kinder’s Unique Barbecue Sauce
• Kraft Unique Sluggish-Simmered Barbecue BBQ Sauce
• Montgomery Inn Barbecue Sauce
• Stubb’s Unique BBQ Sauce
• Candy Child Ray’s Barbecue Sauce
• Dealer Joe’s Natural Kansas Metropolis Fashion BBQ Sauce

In Conclusion

A lot of the sauces we examined adopted the same primary formulation—tomato base, sugar, vinegar, and spices—however the execution diverse considerably. Some had been far too candy, with high-fructose corn syrup listed as the primary ingredient and virtually no acidity to stability the sweetness. Others leaned closely on liquid smoke or “pure smoke taste,” leading to an awesome and infrequently artificial-tasting smokiness. A couple of had been overly acidic, whereas others tasted like little greater than barely spiced-up ketchup.

Our favourite sauces struck a greater stability: wealthy and candy, however layered with tang, spice, and simply sufficient smoke to evoke that acquainted pit-cooked taste. Most of our high picks listing tomato purée as the primary ingredient—except for Bull’s Eye, which lists it second—and all embrace molasses as a key sweetener and flavoring agent. Dealer Joe’s and Cowtown’s sauces stand out for skipping thickeners totally. Whereas Dealer Joe’s took the highest spot, runners-up like Bull’s Eye, Complete Meals, Cowtown, and Goal’s Good & Collect introduced loads of basic, crowd-pleasing barbecue taste we’d be blissful to serve at any cookout.

Our Testing Methodology

All style exams are performed with manufacturers utterly hidden and with out dialogue. Tasters style samples in random order. For instance, taster A could style pattern one first, whereas taster B will style pattern six first. That is to stop palate fatigue from unfairly giving anybody pattern a bonus. Tasters are requested to fill our tasting sheets rating the samples for varied standards. All information is tabulated and outcomes are calculated with no editorial enter as a way to give us essentially the most neutral illustration of precise outcomes doable.