What Makes a Good Natural BBQ Sauce?

There are almost as many BBQ sauces out there as people who use BBQ sauce.  These sauces use all types of ingredients.  A question that we get all the time is what makes a good natural BBQ sauce?

In our humble opinion it all starts with what you choose to put in it, and what choose to leave out.  Many sauces start with ketchup as a base.  While there are a few natural ketchup brands on the shelf, most are filled with artificial ingredients and high fructose corn syrup.  Our recommendation is that you start with free ingredients and leave out anything that you can’t pronounce. Why start with ketchup when you can start with the ingredients that make ketchup?

Here at Fat Boy BBQ we start with red ripe tomatoes.  If you are trying your own at home, you can use a blend of tomato paste and tomato sauce.  Most people like a little sweet flavor to their sauce.  Many sauces that are not natural use high fructose corn syrup and other additives to achieve that goal.  We like to leave out the lab work and the periodic table and keep it simple.  We use honey, brown sugar and molasses to give that sweet taste. This happens to be stuff that is probably in your cupboard if you would like to try your hand at making your own signature sauce.

The other ingredients that make a good natural BBQ sauce are onion, pepper, garlic, chipotle powder, sugar and spices.  Over years of successes and failures here at Fat Boy BBQ, we have found that the simplest ingredients taste the best. When you strip away all of the artificial stuff that is supposed to make it taste good, more times than not it tastes better.  Keep it real, keep it natural and remember it’s BBQ not brain surgery.  Have some fun with it.