by Holly
This homemade BBQ Sauce Recipe is so easy to make and can be customized to suit any dish! It’s your perfect combination of sweet, savory and spicy. Serve on your favorite barbecue chicken foil packets or slathered on grilled chicken or grilled pork chops. The delicious possibilities are endless!
Homemade BBQ Sauce
How many barbecue sauce brands are really out on supermarket shelves? Since barbecuing is one of America’s favorite past-times, it’s no wonder there are so many options! Honestly, the best barbecue sauce on the market is your own made right in your kitchen! Using the basic foundation below, you can tweak and add your favorites to create your own homemade barbecue sauce concoctions!
Barbecue Sauce Ingredients
The best homemade barbecue sauce will always start with similar basic ingredients to as the foundation. The greatest part is that from there you can re-season it any way you want to for whatever application you have!
- Base: ketchup, molasses, vinegar, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce.
- Basic Seasonings: paprika, dry mustard, salt and pepper, onions, garlic (or garlic powder).
Add some honey to this easy bbq sauce and coat some beef or pork ribs. Adding some tabasco or Frank’s Red Hot sauce is a perfect complement on chicken wings!
- Optional Flavor Boosters:
- Tabasco/Sriracha
- honey
- pureed green chiles or tomatillos
- tomato puree, chili sauce
- citrus juice (orange, lemon or lime depending on the application).
How To Make BBQ Sauce
This recipe is so easy, with just a few steps and only 30 minutes you can create a custom barbecue sauce all your own.
- Cook finely diced onion and minced garlic with olive oil in a small saucepan until tender, about 10 minutes.
- Add the remaining ingredients and simmer 20 minutes or until thickened.
This can be served just as is or you can blend it with an immersion blender for a smoother consistency (in the images here, I did not blend it). Either will taste great!
How to Store Homemade BBQ Sauce
This is the easy part! Just keep in a tightly sealed container like a glass mason jar or a clean salad dressing bottle. Use within a few weeks since your homemade barbecue sauce won’t have all the preservatives that store-bought does.
Try Your BBQ Sauce in These Delicious Recipes
- Slow Cooker BBQ Beef Sandwiches – crowd pleaser.
- Dr. Pepper Crock Pot Pulled Pork Recipe – just 5 mins of prep!
- Oven Baked BBQ Chicken Taquitos – perfect snack or appetizer.
- Cheeseburger Pizza – 30 minute meal.
- Easy Grilled Chicken Breast – just baste on top!
- Air Fryer Chicken Tenders – perfect to dip with
Easy BBQ Sauce Recipe
Prep Time 5 minutes
Servings 2 cups
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ onion finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- ⅔ cup ketchup
- ¼ cup cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons molasses
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- ½ tablespoon dry mustard
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
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Instructions
- Cook onion and garlic in a small saucepan on medium low heat until tender, about 10 minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients and simmer 20 minutes or until thickened.
Nutrition Information
(Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.)
Loved it! Will definitely make it again! And again!
Dear Holly,
When I need a good recipe, your site is the first one I go to. I’ve tried many of your recipes and had great success with the majority of them. Well I have to get back to your homemade Barbecue Sauce now cooking and it smell so good. THANKS
Thank you Susan, you made my day! Enjoy the BBQ – I too love the smell of my kitchen when I make it!
I like adding some chipotle peppers or just the liquid to give it an extra punch. Homemade BBQ is much better than store bought and I dislike it a lot!
Adding chipotle peppers is a great idea, Diane!
Hi Holly your recipies are so simple and easy to make I use them a lot Thank You
Thanks Sandra! So glad you are enjoying them!
Hi Holly!
First off let me tell you my family loves your recipies. For this barbecue sauce recipe I had one question..
I don’t have any molasses.. can I use brown sugar in place of the molasses or would you recommend using dark corn syrup instead? And how much just a couple tablespoons? Please help :) fellow lover of cooking <3 -Sky
Sky, thank you, I’m so glad to hear you enjoy my recipes! I’ve only made the recipe as written. The molasses adds a nice flavor. Try omitting it and see how it tastes before adding anything else in its place.
I also couldn’t find molasses in the store, so used treacle syrup instead, not sure how it changed the flavour though, but it was still lovely! Will definitely make it again. Most recipes these days I first come to your website and I usually find what I am looking for! Thank you for sharing all of these wonderful recipes.
So happy that worked well for you, Narina! Thanks for sharing.