Scott's Savory BBQ Sauce

Generally, I tend to avoid recipes with only 1 or 2 ratings. I came across this one while looking for a sauce that didn't use dry mustard or liquid smoke and decided to give it a try. Exactly what I expected, perfect balance between sweet and acidic taste!

I hestitated making such a big batch of this sauce never having tried the recipe before but it was delicious. It is so much better than store bought--I don't think I'll ever go back! It is nice having homemade, delicious sauce all ready in the fridge when you are ready to BBQ. We'll definately be using this all summer!

This barbecue sauce is a lot better then the sauces you can buy in stores. If you don't believe me try it.

Delicious. I started by sauteing finely diced onions and garlic in butter in a large pot, adding the remaining ingredients and simmering for about 15 minutes to combine the ingredients. I thickened it up a bit by adding a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, and stirring it into the bubbling brew. Yum!

Yum! This sauce is great! My husband from N Carolina was really pleased. I put a 2lb pork tenderloin in the crock pot with 2 cups of water and salt and pepper, let it cook for four or five hours, pulled it apart, added some of this awesome sauce and let it warm in the crock pot for another 30 min to an hour.

My very hard to please husband, LOVED this sauce. I cut the recipe in half and used Splenda brown sugar blend to cut back on calories a bit. Personally, I would add just a tad less vinegar, but that's probably what hubby liked about it. A very nice mix of sweet and sour.

Great unique flavor. The next time I made it I added butter and water to cut down on the vinegar byte. Also added 1 tbl spoon of cayenne pepper for some more spice.

I found this sauce to be mediocre at best. All I could taste was ketchup so I added slightly more worcestershire. I didn't help that much. I will not make this sauce again.

loved loved loved this sauce. I prepared it and added it to the crockpot with a pork tenderloin and let it cook for 5 hours. We had the best pulled pork sandwiches!

I made this sauce and drenched some back ribs on the pit , and this is easily one of the best sauces i ever tasted .

My new favorite BBQ sauce!! I made this to serve with smoked boston butt for our July 4th party this year and it was fabulous! Some people don't like vinegar based sauces, but it is my favorite and my hubby's favorite as well! I love that it has the vinegar bite of North Carolina type sauce, but also has some ketchup to thicken it up a bit so it sticks to the meat better. As I'm writing this review, it is making me hungry for more! I didn't change a thing, but it would be easy to increase or decrease the heat or sweetness according to your own taste buds :o) Thanks Scott!!

I was looking for a good sauce for my smoked pork. I definately found it! I usually don't eat that much bbq, but this sauce added that perfect blend of sweet and sour. I've since made this sauce several times. Got some in the fridge now. I only backed off of the salt by half. Makes the bbq perfect! Thanks Scott.

I use this sauce to soak ribs and chicken,and spary it on during my slow cooking of meat,makes it tender and has great flavor

Really great!

Very good BBQ sauce. I halved the recipe and then ended up adding a little more ketchup and Worcestershire sauce just because I thought the vinegar was a big much, but overall we really liked it.

This is a super BBQ Sauce, if you like a little smoke (I love anything smokey except an Oreo) add a 1/2 teaspoon to taste, add a few more drops but be careful you can get too much. Btw there are some real liquid smoke out there not just the imitation. The one I use is a light amber color, if they look like soy sauce usually have some fake flavorings added and give a funny taste. Otherwise buy some to use for sauce and to put teaspoon in bottom of a pan with 3/4 cup water and put ribs on rack covered with foil over top. Bake for 3 hrs at 250 and remove, cover with sauce, bake 30 mins more 350 degrees basting every 10 mins What I do since I can't have grill at apt.

The best! My family and I will never buy BBQ sauce again. It maybe runny after it's done being made but don't let that fool you. I'll thicken up on the meat when cooking.

There is a restaurant in my area that is called Old Carolina Barbeque, this sauce almost exactly replicates it!! I always have these ingredients on hand so it's great to make ahead and keep it in the fridge. Reallyn good

This recipe was fantastic. I made it exactly as the recipe stated and my family, especially my son, loved it. I was a bit affraid the vinegar would overpower the flavor but it didn't. Thought it was best the day after I made it after everthing had time to blend.

A friend gave us a bottle of this sauce. We loved it. When we asked for the recipe, he gave us a copy from Allrecipes. Our new favorite sauce from our favorite website.

I am not a fan and I love all kinds of BBQ sauces, not quite a mop sauce, too much ketchup like flavor.

Make this all the time. Wonderful! (and very easy)

I will make this BBQ sauce again and again. I enjoyed the less sweet and more vinegary flavor...I did add celery seed.

Fabulous, we will never use jar sauce again. Thank you. Mark and Victoria

Best BBQ sauce I've ever had OR made! Great recipe! Everyone loved it! Thanks!

For an interesting change, add some grated orange rind! I use this, with the added orange rind, on chicken all the time. I take boneless breasts and halve them horizontally (like butterflying them but keep going), then marinating them overnight. Grills up quick and delicious! Remember to reserve some sauce to baste with while the cook.

Holy cow, this stuff is great! I could almost drink it straight. Used it on pulled pork for a party of 100 and got rave reviews and several requests for the recipe. I made one batch with regular paprika and it was very good. Made a second batch with spanish smoked paprika and it was far superior. Thanks for a great recipe!

I love this recipe! Fast and easy! My husband (who is quite picky with his bbq sauce) loved this. Thanks for this great recipe!!! And the great website!

This sauce is so good! I only had white vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar and it still tasted great. I marinated chicken legs for about 30 minutes in it, then simmered the sauce and basted the chicken over the grill. Yummy! Both my kids give it two thumbs up!

I took some advice from other reviewers when I made this sauce. First of all, I cut the entire recipe into 1/4. Substituted 5oz. can of tomato paste + 3T Ketchup for the bottle (or 1/4 bottle for mine) of ketchup. I sauteed finely-chopped onion (1/2 small) and garlic (1 small head) in olive oil and then added ingredients to sauce pan, heating through, but not to boiling. I also added 1/4-1/3C water at the end to cut the vinegar. Excellent sauce! used it on a pork shoulder I had smoked all day at 200º. Wonderful meal!

AWESOME!! I've made twice now, and use all the time on pork & chicken. The whole family loves it! Thanks Scott!!

Shredded some chicken (slow cooked on high for 4 hours in broth) then simmered it in this sauce. Killed it. Awesome recipe. Sharing with friends and will use frequently.

My favorite.

i always bought sweet baby rays which is a phenomenal sauce and made this one and its a very close second its a awesome recipe

Absolutely Amazing. Living in Tennessee i have had my fair share of Sauces and I have to say this was pretty darn tasty. I added about a tsp of cayenne pepper and flakes to give it a little more bite. It went great with everything on the grill. The kids loved it on the hot dogs as well. This is definately a musty try. just make sure you let it sit for the required time. The vinegar taste wears off after a while.

Excellent Recipe- I think a 1 to 1 mixture between cider vinegar and ketchup is the right blend, it will appeal to more folks. True NC BBQ sauce has a higher vinegar ratio. Also a bit to much Worchester Sauce -

I needed a sauce to please everyone, and this sounded like just the perfect one. I had to make some adjustments to it, but it's REALLY good! I thought the combination of vinegar, ketchup and lemon juice sounded a little too tangy for me, even though I consider myself addicted to anything with vinegar, so I used white vinegar instead of cider vinegar, I used a can of condensed tomato soup instead of the ketchup and eliminated the lemon juice all together. After mixing it all up, I still found it a bit too tangy for my liking so I added 3 tablespoons of molasses. After adding the molasses, I found it just right -- it was so good, in fact, that my 6-year old asked for a bowl of it to dip her veggies in! It's a keeper.

We used it on a smoked pork shoulder and it tasted great. Be warned that if the meat sits overnight in the sauce it will be HOT!

The baby back ribs were great with this bbq sauce. I smoked my ribs for two and a half hours. Then I wrapped the ribs in aluminum foil with extra bbq sauce and left them on the smoker for 45 minutes to an hour longer. When I took up the ribs, the meat was so tender you could pull the bone out of the ribs with two fingers. They were great and a hit with the family. Thanks for sharing your recipe!

Very good recipe. Being in the Netherlands, there is no good BBQ here! This recipe is what we miss.. Bit too spicy for the kids, but will leave out the pepper flakes next time... Thanks!

Great sauce! I halved the recipe, added only 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp red pepper flakes. We used it to soak some shredded pork roast that dried out too much in the crock pot, and made bbq pulled pork sandwiches with it. It has a bite. Glad I didn't add more pepper flakes! This is a keeper!

Yep! A very good NC style sauce. I cut the salt in half and it's great!

Everybody loves it. Much better than what I used to buy.

Just made this, and based on the other reviews, cut back on the vinegar by 1/4 cup. Still, I found it watery and acidy from too much vinegar. So like that, it was a 3 star recipe for me. I added a tablespoon of cornstartch to thicken, a small can of tomato paste, and 1-2 teaspoons of liquid smoke and HOLY HALLELUJAH! 5 stars.

So good and so easy!

One of the tastiest sauces I have ever made. I did not follow the recipe exactly. I subbed regular brown sugar & Red Pepper instead of flakes. I made a much smaller amount and will keep in the ketchup bottle for some BBQ Chicken tomorrow night, but the Pork Ribs were awesome tonight. GREAT RECIPE - FANTASTIC FLAVOR!!

Good sauce, but half the vinegar. I had to boil it down. Then, the real spice of those red peppers came out and it was tangy, sweet and spicy. I love it now.

I don't like buying ready made BBQ sauce. This is a great recipe with all the ingredients I have at home. I thinned it a bit with water so I could keep the bold flavor and had less salt and sugar.

Thank you "cookingdad" for this recipe that DOESN'T have cumin, chili powder or smoke flavoring in it!!!

This sauce was great: simple to prepare, well balanced flavor profile, and easy to change the heat factor with cayenne pepper to suit taste. I used this sauce on grilled chicken breast, but want to give it a shot with pulled pork or baby back ribs.

Tastes like ketchup and vinegar... not a fan!

Loved this! I didn't change a thing. Yum.....

Wow! Won't be making this one again. Way too much vinegar, it overpowered the flavor of the other ingredients and of the ribs. Off in search of a better one.

My whole family and now my friends love this bbq sauce! I am the designated bbq sauce maker whenever it's needed. We love to cook chicken breasts in a slow cooker and then shred them and pour this sauce in.....AWESOME Healthy BBQ Chicken sandwiches!!!!! Thank you so much Silent Hokie for posting this!

Can it really be correct that it calls for 1/4 cup paprika and 1/4 cup of salt?!?! Even 2 T of red pepper?

I prefer something with flavor in place of something spicy and hot. Why ruin good meat.

This is very good.

Thanks to this recipe, I will never buy BBQ sauce again. I did cut down on the vinegar by about half. Was perfect!!!

Recipe works better if you bring the ingredients to a very low boil and simmer for 20 minutes, cool and then bottle.

This is one of the best BBQ sauces I have made it works well with chicken and pork.

Unfortunately this recipe just did not work for us. The vinegar was far too overwhelming, and no attempt at rescue could save the sauce. Nobody I took this sauce to would eat it.

I made enough to can this for future use. Very good!

I thought this was ok, but hubby loved it. I found the vinegar a bit too overpowering, plus I found the sauce a bit runny even after trying to simmer it down on my own a bit. I did half the recipe so perhaps I messed up in the brown sugar amount as I guessed, but overall it was alright. Not my favorite, but if you like lots of flavor you may like it. Oh, I omitted the red pepper flakes b/c we have little ones.

Sorry, but i didn't taste what everyone else did...It tasted like alot of ketchup. I won't be making it again.

Basically, vinegary ketchup....Thanks, but no...

Ok, this sauce is ridiculous. Actually, as written, I would give it 4 stars. However, with one small change you can take this from delicious to change-your-life-amazing. Instead of mixing all the ingredients and shaking them, I cook the sauce. Starting with caramelizing the brown sugar (be careful with this step as it goes from perfect to burned in a nanosecond) and then I add the spices, stirring. When everything is molten over low heat, I stir in the ketchup, vinegar and lemon juice. Bring that to a boil and then simmer for abt 15 mins. Done. My family calls this "awesome sauce." I've given it as a gift and the recipients have RAVED over it. Thank you for sharing such an AMAZING recommendation - my family is beyond grateful!!!

If you like vinegar based BBQ sauce, you will love this recipe. It has just the right amount of bite and a touch of heat. Tastes best about 48 hrs after making it after the flavors have had time to meld a little bit.

We love this sauce. It is also easy to cut in halves or fourths if you don't want to make a large quantity.

Didn't have lemon. Added more ketchup. Good stuff!

My friends can't believe that this is homemade barbecue sauce. I just measure everything into my Vitamix. It's too easy. I started out using it only on ribs, but it's so good until I started experimenting with other meats. Try simmering meatballs in the sauce for a very special main dish.

Followed the directions and it was perfect!

I used half the brown sugar and it still seemed well balanced.

I made it and it's just what I was looking for. I quartered the recipe and eyeballed everything except the vinegar, so I may have a bit more of this and a bit less of that... I'm happy with it. Next time I'll commit to the measurements as stated and update this review.

We love BBQ Sauce but I'm sorry we did not like this one AT ALL. I made the full recipe, used all ingredients listed for the amounts listed.

Excellent bbq sauce!!! going to make it again and can it!!

This sauce is excellent but I only wanted to make a little and didn't do the math to break it down. I probably should have since I'm not sure if the proportions are correct but I have all the ingredients (I used extra chili powder for extra heat) and the combination was easy and delicious. I made this for pork and chicken.

Holy Moly!!! This is GOOD. I ran out of BBQ sauce last week, and when I went to purchase a new bottle, thought to self, $5 is a lot of money, especially since I practically drink the stuff... why not try to make it instead? SO glad I did!! Made a half batch to test it out first, just in case, so I may have fudged the measurements a little, though figured it's kind of an adjust-to-taste thing anyway when it comes to BBQ. All the elements are spot on. I do love a vinegar-y Carolina-style sauce, as some reviewers have noted this is - tart is my jam. Mighty fine - thank you for the recipe!!

I eyeballed it and would decrease the cider vinegar and increase ketchup. Also added a bit of honey. Easy and tasty

yummmmm this is good stuff. I reduced the recipe to 10 servings, omitted the salt and did not add red pepper flakes. Will definitely make again and again!