In addition to this month’s theme of HOMEMADE SAUCES, here comes the BBQ sauce: Classic and Smoky version. Though it can be made from scratch, I preferred this short-cut as an extension to my last week’s sauce- Homemade Tomato ketchup.
BBQ sauce is so prevalent that it has become indispensable in every kitchen. This luscious sauce shows versatility in its utility. It can be a marinade for meat and veggies, a dip for appetizers, a dressing for salad, a spread for burgers, pizza, a table condiment for any junk food, and finally the most fundamental usage is as a basting sauce for barbecuing meats. The origin of this sauce dates back to the South-eastern Indians of the USA who were natives of the soil. The final makeover of today’s sauce was given by African-Americans who added more spice and tartness to it.
This highly intense sauce is a combo of flavours like sweet, tangy, smoky, and spicy. Basically, the sauce consists of tomato sauce, tomato paste, vinegar, and molasses seasoned with spices and flavouring agents. This recipe calls for a quick and easy version which involves tomato ketchup, and other condiments lying around your kitchen closets to make your life easy. The process involved is also pretty easy like mixing, simmering, and storing, it can be done and dusted in a bit. I would highly recommend you to go for this homemade as many store-bought BBQ sauces are loaded with preservatives and high fructose content. It’s worth taking 20 minutes of your time to make this preservative-free and healthy version at home for your loved ones.
You can make multiple versions of it, I made Classic BBQ sauce and a Smoky BBQ sauce. You can increase the sweetening agents such as molasses or dark brown sugar or honey to make Sweet BBQ sauce. Increase spices like paprika powder, red chilli powder, pepper powder, mustard powder to convert it into Spicy BBQ sauce or a combination of both to make Sweet and Spicy BBQ sauce. It can also be made Vegan-friendly by replacing Worcestershire sauce with the vegan version and replacing honey with agave syrup.
As I mentioned early, I made a Smoky version by roasting the onion and garlic in direct flame. Actual inclusions would be adding liquid smoke or smoked paprika or smoked flavouring agent or a laborious process of using smokers. Instead, I smoked the onion and garlic in flame to get this result. My intention was to make it easy and budget-friendly by going with the available ingredients from your kitchen counter. Let’s get into the recipe.
Click here to jump to recipe card!
Keep all the ingredients ready on the working table.
Take a thick bottomed pan, preferably a deep vessel (to avoid splattering). Add dark brown sugar and tomato ketchup.
Then add all the spices.
For mustard and pepper powder, you can roast them and grind them together as well, if you don’t have the stock of these powders individually.
Now add all the liquid ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice, sauces, honey. If you are vegan or if Worcestershire sauce is unavailable, feel free to skip the Worcestershire sauce. Likewise, for Sriracha or any hot sauce, the alternative is red chilli paste which I used in homemade tomato ketchup.
Till this stage, all the ingredients are same, for both Classic and Smoky BBQ sauce. If you are planning for Classic BBQ sauce, then directly add the onion and garlic powder to the rest of the ingredients.
If you want to do a Smoky version, then skip onion and garlic powder, take half an onion and 1 garlic clove.
Spray cooking oil or butter.
Smoke them on direct flame till it turns charred on all sides.
Grind them into a puree with few drops of water if required. Add this puree to the sauce in the place of onion and garlic powder to get Smoky BBQ.
Now, rest of the procedure are same to both the BBQ sauce varieties. Whisk all the ingredients.
Add half a cup of water and whisk again.
And heat them in a medium flame till you get bubbles. Then close with a lid and cook for 5 minutes.
Later open the lid and reduce the flame to low.
And simmer it for 15–20 minutes to get your required consistency..
Let’s use this BBQ to marinate the pineapple slices, asparagus for vegans.
And chicken breast for non vegetarians. For chicken, you can pre-marinate by adding chilli powder and salt. Then drizzle the BBQ sauce. Let it rest for 30 minutes-overnight.
Take a griddle or a pan, add few drops of olive oil, then place the marinated asparagus and pineapple slices. Baste with more BBQ sauce and grill them.
Similarly, baste the marinated chicken.
And grill it evenly on all sides. Grilling can be done on OTG or microwave or air fryer.
Both the BBQ sauce may look the same, but you can feel the difference in taste as the Smoky BBQ has a tinge of smoked flavour imparted by the smoked onion and garlic.
Classic BBQ and Smoky BBQ sauces are ready to serve. as dipping to fries, nuggets, meatballs, as a basting sauce for steaks, pork, ribs, as marinating sauce for meat, chicken, seafood.
And as a flavouring agent for baked beans or grilled veggies, as a spread on burgers and pizzas, as a dressing for the salads, as a garnish to the tacos, quesadillas, and burritos.
Recipe card
Preparation time: 2 minutes
Cooking time:15-20 minutes
Cuisine: International
Category: Accompaniments
Yields: 1- 1 ½ cup
Author: Manimala
Ingredients:
For Classic BBQ sauce-
Tomato ketchup – 1 cup
Dark brown sugar – 4 tbsp
Honey/Agave syrup – 4 tsp
Apple cider vinegar/ white vinegar – ¼ cup
Worcestershire sauce/ vegan Worcestershire – 2 tsp
Sriracha/ hot sauce – ¼ tsp
Lemon juice – ½ tsp
Water – ½ cup
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Cumin powder – ¼ tsp
Mustard powder – ½ tsp
Pepper powder – ¼ tsp
Salt – ½ tsp
Onion powder – ½ tsp
Garlic powder – ¼ tsp
For Smoky BBQ sauce-
Tomato ketchup – 1 cup
Dark brown sugar – 4 tbsp
Honey/Agave syrup – 4 tsp
Apple cider vinegar/ white vinegar – ¼ cup
Worcestershire sauce/ vegan Worcestershire – 2 tsp
Sriracha/ hot sauce – ¼ tsp
Lemon juice – ½ tsp
Water – ½ cup
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Cumin powder – ¼ tsp
Mustard powder – ½ tsp
Pepper powder – ¼ tsp
Salt – ½ tsp
Onion – half (small size)
Garlic – 1 clove
Instructions:
- Keep all the ingredients ready on the work table. Take a thick bottomed pan, preferably a deep vessel (to avoid splattering). Add dark brown sugar and tomato ketchup.
- Then add all the spices. For mustard and pepper powder, you can roast them and grind them together as well, if you don’t have the stock of these powders individually.
- Now add all the liquid ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice, sauces, honey. If you are vegan or if Worcestershire sauce is unavailable, feel free to skip the Worcestershire sauce.
- Likewise, for Sriracha or any hot sauce, the alternative is red chilli paste which I used in homemade tomato ketchup.
- Till this stage, all the ingredients are same, for both Classic and Smoky BBQ sauce.
- If you are planning for Classic BBQ sauce, then directly add the onion and garlic powder to the rest of the ingredients.
- If you want to do a Smoky version, then skip onion and garlic powder, take half an onion and 1 garlic clove, spray cooking oil or butter, smoke them on direct flame till it turns charred on all sides.
- Grind them into a puree with few drops of water if required. Add this puree to the sauce in the place of onion and garlic powder to get Smoky BBQ.
- Now, rest of the procedure are same to both the BBQ sauce varieties. Whisk all the ingredients and heat them in a medium flame till you get bubbles. Then close with a lid and cook for 5 minutes.
- Later open the lid and reduce the flame to low and simmer it for 15–20 minutes to get your required consistency.
- Let’s use this BBQ to marinate the pineapple slices, asparagus for vegans and chicken breast for non vegetarians. For chicken, you can pre-marinate by adding chilli powder and salt. Then drizzle the BBQ sauce. Let it rest for 30 minutes-overnight.
- Take a griddle or a pan, add few drops of olive oil, then place the marinated asparagus and pineapple slices. Baste with more BBQ sauce and grill them.
- Similarly, baste the marinated chicken. And grill it evenly on all sides. Grilling can be done on OTG or microwave or air fryer.
- Both the BBQ sauce may look the same, but you can feel the difference in taste as the smoky bbq has a tinge of smoked flavour imparted by the smoked onion and garlic.
- Classic BBQ and Smoky BBQ sauces are ready to serve as dipping to fries, nuggets, meatballs, and as a basting sauce for steaks, pork, ribs, as marinating sauce for meat, chicken, seafood, and as a flavouring agent for baked beans or grilled veggies, as a spread on burgers and pizzas, as a dressing for the salads, as a garnish to the tacos, quesadillas, and burritos.
Notes:
- BBQ sauce from scratch involves tomato sauce and tomato paste. I used homemade tomato ketchup for a quicker and easier version.
- Authentic preparation includes molasses as a sweetening agent, here I replaced it with dark brown sugar to get that intense colour and flavour. You can replace it with jaggery powder or country sugar (naattu sarkkarai) but manipulate the quantity as jaggery and country sugar have lesser sweet content compared to dark brown sugar.
- If you are a vegan or a vegetarian, avoid Worcestershire sauce, either go with Vegan Worcestershire sauce available in markets or simply skip it…😄🤫.
- Also, vegans can substitute Honey with Agave syrup.
- The alternative for Sriracha or any hot sauce is red chilli paste which I used in homemade tomato ketchup. (Red chilli paste can be prepared easily at home. Soak the deseeded 10 Kashmiri red chillies in hot water for 30 minutes, then grind them with 1 tbsp chopped garlic into a fine smooth paste (add very little water for grinding if required). You’ll use only 1 ½ tsp, the remaining paste can be stored in a refrigerator and can be used for any curry preparation. Adding this gives an extra punch to the end product with respect to colour and flavour).
- For mustard, cumin, and pepper powder, you can roast them and grind them together as well, if you don’t have the stock of these powders individually. Always feel free to increase or decrease these powders according to your palate preferences.
- Similarly, if you don’t have onion powder or garlic powder, don’t give up, just tweak your classic BBQ to Smoky BBQ by roasting fresh onion 🧅🧅 and garlic 🧄🧄 which will be readily available in your kitchen.
- Roasting can be done in an air fryer or oven, but the smoky flavour is imbibed only when you roast in direct flame.
- Both the BBQ sauce may look the same, but you can feel the difference in taste as the smoky bbq has a tinge of smoked flavour imparted by the smoked onion and garlic. Alternatively, if you don’t want to take the pain of roasting, you can buy liquid smoke, smoked paprika powder, or smoked flavouring agents to enhance the flavour. Roasting onion and garlic are economical and helps you to make Smoky BBQ with your readily available ingredients from your kitchen.
- You can always unfurl your creativity and make different versions of BBQ sauce like Sweet BBQ sauce by increasing the sweetening agents such as molasses or dark brown sugar or honey. To convert it into Spicy BBQ sauce, increase more spices like paprika powder, red chilli powder, pepper powder, mustard powder or a combination of both to make Sweet and Spicy BBQ sauce.
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