Best Homemade Barbecue Sauce

July 17, 2021

Here in Texas, we know our barbecue. Delicacies like brisket, sausage, ribs, and burnt ends taste great right off the smoker, but the real secret is in the sauce. So if you’re looking for the perfect recipe for your next BBQ, look no further. Our best homemade barbecue sauce is as big and bold as the Lone Star State itself. And it’s packed with enough flavor to make even the most experienced pitmaster’s mouth water.

Ingredients for Homemade BBQ Sauce

This rendition of the classic Texas-Style Barbecue Sauce is sweet, tangy, and spicy. But despite all that punch, it won’t overpower the smokey flavor of your meat. So go ahead and experiment. We love to use it as a mopping sauce for our ribs or a wetting sauce for chopped brisket. We even use it on our BBQ chicken.

To make the best homemade barbecue sauce, you’ll need:

• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 fresh jalapeno, diced (remove the seeds for less of a kick)
• 1/2 an onion, diced
• 1 1/2 cups ketchup
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup beef broth or beef drippings collected from your smoker
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp ​Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp yellow mustard
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tsp cumin

Steps for Homemade BBQ Sauce

Once you’ve gathered all the ingredients, just saute the veggies. Then combine the rest of the ingredients. Here are the steps:

1. In a medium saucepan, saute the garlic, jalapeno, and onion until slightly browned.

2. Add the remaining ingredients and warm on low stirring to dissolve the brown sugar. There is no need to bring the mixture to a boil. The idea is just to warm it enough to combine all the ingredients.

3. Remove from the heat. If you have an immersion blender, use it to blend the sauce until smooth and taste for seasoning. If you don’t, cool the sauce to room temperature and pour it into a blender.

If you’re not using the sauce immediately, transfer it into a container and store it in the refrigerator. Remember, there’s beef broth in this recipe, so be sure to use it within a week.

When to Apply Barbeque Sauce

Now that you have a delicious batch of BBQ sauce, it’s time to use it. We‘ve found that when grilling with this particular recipe, the best time to apply the sauce to the meat is about ten minutes before it’s done. This gives the sugars enough time to caramelize from the fire, but not enough time to burn. 

If you’re cooking on a smoker, don’t worry about the sauce burning and ruining your meal. You may get some caramelization of the sugar which will deepen the longer it is on, but it won’t burn because smokers cook at much lower temperatures than grills.

Check us out! We offer grass-fed, grain-finished, sustainably raised bulk beef and Premium Quality custom beef boxes. Each one is chock-full of all your favorite cuts. We also have tons of Texas Beef Company merchandise. Show the world that you Eat Better Beef!