There are thousands of different BBQ sauces on the market today (and even more recipes for BBQ sauce). But not every sauce you buy – or even make from scratch – will work with pork.
When searching for the perfect sauce for pork... you really want a sauce that’s going to bring out the natural taste of the pork – and NOT cover it up, clash with it or overpower it.
Most BBQ Sauces fall into three categories: Tomato, Mustard, or Vinegar.
Mustard and Vinegar based sauces are good on pork (and in some parts of the country that's all you'll find), but a Tomato based sauce is what most people think of when they think BBQ Sauce. And in the competition world, Tomato based rule... so that’s what I'm going to talk about today.
What works best is sweet and tangy... with just the right amount of spices to compliment that rich, natural pork flavor.
Pork can handle sweetness of a sauce, and the acidity from vinegar works to balance the richness. This is why I always use a tomato-based sauce that combines both sweet and tangy.
Making Your Own BBQ Sauce
I believe that you can make a sauce on your own that will be much better than any sauce you can buy. Of course, there are 100s of different sauce recipes and variations out there, but I like to use a basic recipe and then build my own, personal flavors from that.
The basic recipe that I always recommend is:
16 oz tomato sauce
16 oz ketchup
12 oz chili sauce
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup honey
1 tbs worst sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup the bbq rub
1 tbs hot sauce
You always need to cook your sauce in order to break down the tomato flavor and let it meld with all the other ingredients in your pot. And the best option is to do this a day or two ahead of time – and then let it sit in your fridge. This makes sure all these flavors get happy together.
With this basic sauce you can always add other flavors to make it unique or make it suit your personal taste.
If you want to give your sauce a “smoky” flavor, you can always place it in an aluminum pan and put it on your smoker for a few hours while you cook your meat. It will absorb the flavors from whatever wood you are using, and most importantly... it will be a natural smoke taste... not some artificially enhanced flavor.
Store-Bought Sauce
I prefer using homemade sauce, but it's just not always the case. Sometimes I'm short on time... or just looking for a shortcut. But I usually take a second to give any store-bought sauce a little kick.
A lot of times I will mix 2 sauces together (typically a sweet tomato sauce with a tangy vinegar sauce) to get the right flavor I need.
Or I will thin-down a thick sauce with fruit juice (usually pineapple or apple)... and sometimes I will add my rub to the sauce to ensure all my flavors are going to jive (just make sure you heat the sauce and simmer so the rub will dissolve).
If I'm going to buy a store-bought sauce, there are a few brands I am partial to.
Just about anything by Blues Hog is top-quality. A lot of teams use this sauce for competitions, and anytime I'm short on time I'll combine the Blues Hog Original and the Blues Hog Red and run it.
Sweet Baby Ray's is a pretty good, sweet sauce, and when it's mixed with Head Country BBQ Sauce it's a winning combo.
Just try to stay away from the “gimmick” sauces out there.
I don't care what your Uncle Joe-Bob says, Dr. Pepper doesn’t make a good BBQ sauce... neither does Root Beer or Purple Kool-Aid. And Budweiser should just stick to making beer. I know there are a lot of people out there that will disagree with me on these “sauce enhancements”, but there are some flavors that just aren't meant for pork.
No comments:
Post a Comment