Tarheel State-style barbecue sauce
like to start with tomatoes or tomato sauce rather than ketchup. Fire away, I say. I’m just trying to keep it simple here. If I start with a couple cups of ketchup, that will give me a little over 2 cups of barbecue sauce.
The vinegar provides an acidic tang that offsets the heavy, smoky, fatty flavors of the grill. Different recipes call for different types of vinegar. I tend to prefer cider vinegar. It’s fruity and flavorful, and it feels more American than, say, wine vinegars. Plus, I have a hard time with plain distilled vinegar. I know it’s just me, but it makes whatever I’m cooking taste like I’m cleaning the Mr. Coffee.
The sweetness of the brown sugar complements the acid of the vinegar. Other recipes call for molasses or honey or anything else that’s sweet. Truthfully, I find brown sugar easier to use, just because it’s not so sticky.
Now, the important thing about these three ingredients is the ratios. You’ll want to play around to see what you like, but I usually go with 8:1:1 for the ketchup, vinegar and brown sugar. That means for a pint of ketchup, it’s a quarter cup each of the other two. Taste as you go, and, when you find the right balance, you can move on to your flavoring ingredients.
The list of flavoring ingredients is long, long, long. Everything from aromatic vegetables like onions and garlic to spices like cumin and paprika to jarred condiments like mustard, Worcestershire and hot sauce. My advice is to find a trusted recipe source and start with that.
If you’re using aromatic vegetables, I’d recommend sweating or sauteing them in oil before adding. Or, you can go the totally easy route (as I did in the accompanying recipe) and use the granulated versions.
Now, let us not forget that barbecue — regardless of its point of origin — is achieved with glowing coals and burning wood rather than, say, the benign heat of an electric oven. As such, we associate barbecue with the flavor of smoke. Even if you’re not cooking with actual fire, though, you can get that smoky flavor just with your barbecue sauce. Try adding a few drops of liquid smoke to your sauce, or use smoked paprika or smoked salt or pepper instead of their nonsmoked counterparts.
Finally, many recipes call for simmering your sauce to meld and intensify your flavors. As I said earlier, follow your trusted recipes and see how you like them. For my simple recipe, though, I didn’t cook it one bit, and my family still gave it a big thumbs-up. Alls you do is put all the ingredients in a lidded jar and give it a mighty shake, and Bob’s your uncle.
Now, if you’re new to this whole endeavor, go ahead and give our recipe a try. But, if your curiosity’s aroused, absolutely do some research on your own. Read a bunch of recipes. Visit amazingribs.com, the exhaustive site run by former Chicago Tribune contributor Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn. Come up with something wonderful. Then, take a picture of it and post it on social media so your friends can see that you didn’t waste your quarantine.