The Best Homemade BBQ Sauce Recipe

Did you run out of store-bought BBQ sauce and need some ASAP? Maybe you don’t like all the unknown ingredients and the high amount of sugar that’s in processed sauces. Now you can make your own, all-natural, gluten-free BBQ sauce in a flash!

Gluten-free BBQ Sauce

I love that this recipe is flexible. You can add less brown sugar, more spices, more or less vinegar, and different levels of HOT or none at all. It’s great on pulled pork as it slow-cooks in the crockpot. It’s also superb on baked chicken or salmon, grilled ribs, or as a dip for chicken fingers.

In a bowl, stir together:

• 1/2 c. low-sugar, organic ketchup (Target’s Good & Gather brand is a great choice)
• 1/2 c. organic brown sugar
• 2 Tbs. Lea & Perrins Original Worcestershire sauce (it’s gluten-free!)
• 2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar ( I use Bragg’s)
• 2-3 dashes of hot sauce (or more if you like it hot)
• 1-2 tsp. of paprika
• 1-2 tsp. of dry mustard
• A couple shakes of black pepper
• A couple shakes of iodized sea salt (I use Hain brand)
• Pepper flakes (optional)

TIPS:

This makes about 1 1/4 cups of sauce. If you need more, it’s easy to adjust the recipe. Just use equal parts of each ingredient.

If you don’t have dry mustard on hand, use regular mustard, but go easy as it can overpower.

Don’t have Worcestershire sauce? You can tamarind instead, which is also gluten-free.

Also, you can add different seasonings you love to zip it up even more (i.e., smokey sea salt, Urban Accents Herby Maple seasoning, meat rubs, etc.).

If you’re watching your sugar intake, you can use less sugar or add a bit of honey instead, but it will be a vinegar-based sauce, which I’m told is an East North Carolina thing. You can’t go wrong!