I'm tired of paying too much for liquid tomato sugar at the store.
I'm tired of paying too much for liquid tomato sugar at the store.
There are as many favorite sauces as there are taste buds. You gotta just start, adapt, modify...
And write it all down, because you'll never remember exactly how you did it a week later.
You're going to need to be more specific.
Thick like sweet baby rays or thin like open pit? Vinegar, tomato, or pepper based? Sweet, hot, other, or combination? Do you smoke cigars? Do you want a general sauce or something for a specific meat? Do you have a problem with alcohol or enjoy whiskeys or beers? Do you have access to a good craft brew shop?
Have you tried Stubbs? Check on Amazon for "Ernies World Famous" as well before giving up on store bought entirely.
When I get back to my laptop I'll throw a few up.
RevRico said:You're going to need to be more specific.
Thick like sweet baby rays or thin like open pit? Vinegar, tomato, or pepper based? Sweet, hot, other, or combination? Do you smoke cigars? Do you want a general sauce or something for a specific meat? Do you have a problem with alcohol or enjoy whiskeys or beers? Do you have access to a good craft brew shop?
Have you tried Stubbs? Check on Amazon for "Ernies World Famous" as well before giving up on store bought entirely.
When I get back to my laptop I'll throw a few up.
I'm trusting The Hive's palate range for alternatives to what I'm used to. Typically I'm a dry rub kinda guy (I'd be open to dry rub recipes as well!) but my kids love pulled pork and so I thought a list of sauce recipes would give them a chance to experiment and find some they like.
Pulled pork is an easy one. Just shred it straight out of the smoker and then add more rub and let it rest. The rub will turn into it's own sauce.
My typical rub: (measurements are rough, sorry, I do things visually)
Enough kosher salt to cover the butt. couple tablespoons, never an exact amount.
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
tablespoon of COURSE black pepper. (smack the peppercorns with the flat side of a knife)
tablespoon smoked paprika
more than a pinch but less than a teaspoon of each: ground ginger, fine ground all spice, curry powder.
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Oh berkeley, I can't find my scaled recipe for this sauce. Let's see how good my memory is.
Vinegar Based Rib Sauce
2 cups of vinegar
4 cups ketchup
2 medium onions diced
tablespoon Worchestchire suace
tablespoon cracked black pepper
tablespoon kosher salt.
2 teaspoons brown sugar.
Start by carmelizing the onions in the bottom of the pan, when they're getting close, add everything else. Bring to a boil, then simmer until you choke when you taste it, 30-45 minutes.
I feel like I'm forgetting *something* though. I've only been making it for 25 years, it's more habit cabinet hunting than following a recipe. I'll look around this weekend, I don't know what box the book wound up in when we did the floors.
Really pissed off I can't figure out where my recipes are in the XML backup of my old website.
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Youtube links I've tested and like
Cigar Ash BBQ sauce (yes, really)
Honestly, ALL of these are good
Making sweet baby rays better:
Regular bottle of sweet baby rays
bottle of HOppy beer (sierra nevada, dogfish 60 minute, avoid fruit flavored IPAs for this)
tablespoon of fine black pepper
teaspoon of cayenne pepper
small to medium onion diced.
Caremilize the onions first, then add sauce, beer, and everything else, bring to a boil, then simmer until it gets to your preferred thickness.
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My new favorite ham rub:
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons of whole peppercorns
a tablespoon of cayenne.
Throw it all in a coffee grinder until fine and mixed together, and rub on a brined ham, or raw butt.
Not for kids, but the sauce that could make me rich if I could afford to rent a commercial kitchen to mass produce it. This requires a pressure cooker.
2 large onions
4 habeneros
4 jalepenos
2 Poblanos
1 can Chipotles in Adobo sauce
4 long skinny green hot peppers I can't think of the name of now
4 long skinny red hot peppers I can't think of the name of now.
3 garlic cloves
Vinegar to cover (about 2 cups)
Split your ingredients into 2 piles plus the can of chipotles
Take one pile, and slice everything up as thin as you can . I use a mandoline. Put it into your pressure cooker on the "sear" function if you have it, if not, use a pan on the stove, and just brown evertying. Once browned, put in the pressure cooker, add the chipotles in adobo and add vinegar to cover. I like to use the vinegar to clean out the adobo sauce from the can. I do 45 minutes on high pressure, with a natural cool down.
Now, open the pressure cooker and use your stick blender to turn it all into liquid. If you don't have a stick blender, let it cool enough to use your regular blender, but understand this will most likely stain the container.
Take your second pile of ingrediants and just rough chop them. You want big chunks I've found out. Add them to the PC, and give it another 45 minutes to an hour. Natural cooldown to relieve pressure again.
At this point, I blend it all into liquid again, but you can leave the chunks if that's what you're going after. Ages well, lasts for berkeleying ever in the refridgerator, and goes great with pretty much everything.
Many rub recipes can be turned into BBQ sauces. I actually haven't tried it yet, but I was reading an article (and can't find it now) about taking your favorite rub and adding any one of several combinations of vinegar, tomato paste, apple cider, beer, wine, etc to make a BBQ sauce.
Not sure what your tastes are, but some of the finest OTC sauces are sold in Canada and starting to filter into the states. Available on Amazon. Diana Sauce. My personal favorite is the honey garlic.
My standard rub looks like this:
2.5T paprika
3T kosher salt
1T garlic powder
1T onion powder
2t black pepper
1/2t cayenne
1t cumin
1/2t coriander
1/2t marjoram
1/4t chili powder
1/4c brown sugar
Take note of the T (tablespoon) versus the t (teaspoon). Play around with that and some tomato paste and vinegar and see what you get. Since you're doing a sauce, you can obviously replace the garlic and onion powders with the real thing, and maybe skip the chili powder for some Anchos or Pasillas
2tbsp vegetable oil
1 small diced onion
3 cups water
1 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1tsp salt
1tsp black pepper.
heat the oil, add the onion and cook until translucent, add everything else and simmer for 30 minutes. Not to hot to bother kids or normal people, not to hard to make with things likely on hand, and it goes well with beef, pork, and chicken.
Just did 15 lbs of pork spare ribs this morning. Scaled the recipe to suit.
4 cups brown sugar
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 cup bourbon
Couple big dashes of:
Red pepper flakes
Chili powder
Black pepper
Dry mustard
2 crushed cloves of garlic
Turned out pretty tasty. I thought it was a touch heavy on vinegar, wife thought it was a touch heavy on sugar.
I have a pretty good barbecue sauce recipe, but I really don't think saving money is the reason to make your own.
2 cups Frank's Red Hot, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons cyainide.
Oh wait, you didn't mean literally killer? 
Subscribed for ideas as well.
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