BBQ Sauce – A Beautiful Mess

This easy BBQ sauce recipe can come together in about 10 minutes! This sauce is everything I love in a BBQ sauce—sweet and savory, thick and super flavorful. While there’s nothing wrong with store-bought sauces, this homemade version is so easy to make and customize to your liking that you’ll never go back!

I love to use this BBQ sauce as a condiment, poured over sandwich fillings or as a dip for things like chicken tenders. But I also sometimes use this as a marinade before baking chicken or other meats.

Related: If you love this, next up, try homemade Chick-fil-A sauce or buffalo sauce. Plus, here’s 50+ Easy BBQ Side Dishes.

Ingredients

• Tomato paste
• Apple cider vinegar
• Maple syrup
• Honey
• Molasses
• Dijon mustard
• Garlic powder
• Salt
• Red pepper flakes
• Onion powder
• Cayenne
• Paprika
• Black pepper
• Apple juice

How to make BBQ Sauce

In a small to medium pot, over high heat, stir together all the ingredients until well combined and the mixture just begins to boil. Taste and add more salt or anything else you feel the sauce needs.

You can use this sauce recipe right away or save in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least a week (but likely longer). If you want to save this sauce for longer periods of time, it freezes well too.

Tips & Substitutions

• This recipe makes about 1 1/2 cups of BBQ sauce.
• You can substitute the honey or maple syrup for brown sugar. I do like to use a few different sweeteners though as it adds to the overall flavor.
• If needed, you can substitute the apple juice for water.
• If you’d like to add more heat, you can increase the red pepper flakes and/or cayenne. To add some smoky heat, try blending in a chipotle pepper to this sauce.

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