Barbeque Sauce

To some, barbeque sauce is what makes meat into barbeque, rather than just grilled meat. These sauces are as varied as the people who make them, and there are competitions held nationwide for people to show off their skills. The type of sauce a person cooks up can say a lot about the style of barbeque they prefer.

For starters, there are four main bases for barbeque sauce: vinegar, tomatoes, mustard, and sugar. You’ll be hard pressed to find a sauce that doesn’t feature at least two of these, and many contain all four. Different areas feature specific combinations that they claim are the secret to “real” barbeque sauce.

For instance, in the Carolinas, a thin, vinegar based sauce is used. The eastern sauce is very thin and used for basting. The western Carolina variety adds tomatoes to thicken their sauce. The southern Carolina style of sauce is mustard based, rather than tomato based. As you head west into Kentucky and Missouri you’ll see sauces transform from the sharper Carolina sauces into sweeter KC style sauce, which features higher sugar levels than the others. And of course in Texas, everything is different, including the barbeque sauce, so you’ll find rich and spicy sauces there.