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| Homemade BBQ Sauce |
But beyond that I thought about someone who might just step into their home and have this great piece of chicken and a barbecue grill or oven but no sauce on hand to get that chicken done. So, let's fix that by teaching you one of quickest bbq sauce recipes I know. The first thing to do is assemble all of the ingredients so that they are right in front of you. You may choose to go out and collect some additional spices or maybe tomato sauce. Either way once you have all of the ingredients in front of you the actual blending should take no more than 1 minute. Let's get started.
First, what do we know about bbq sauce? We know that better than 70% of the bbq sauces that exist start with 4 or 5 common elements. So, most sauces start with things like acids in the form of tomatoes, paste or purees. Vinegar's are introduced in the form of Apple Cider or Red or White Wine. Peppers play a big part in the form of coarse black or ground white along with Salts in the form of Kosher, table or sea salt. Mustard's either in yellow or stone ground versions and Spices such as cumin, oregano, paprika, turmeric or other all have their role to play in making our sauce flavorful.
Say you have these ingredients at home but here's the key and I might add the critical part of this is knowing the proportions of these ingredients to mix. Well I like to start with the biggest item at the top then work my way down to the smallest. Since most bbq sauces are tomato based we'll start with at least 60% of the base in the form of tomato sauce or tomato puree. Followed by liquids let's add some additional liquid to the mix to keep the sauce thin. So, we'll add at least 10% water or lemon juice.
For my mix I'll be using water but I just wanted to give you an option with the lemon juice as a flavoring. Followed by the sugars such as molasses, brown sugar or some form of syrup. Let's focus in on 10% for the sugar related items. So far that brings us to 80%. So next we'll look to Vinegar's as they aid in the marination process. We'll add 5% in the form of Apple Cider Vinegar. Following that we'll focus on Salts, this is critical because we don't want the result to be too salty or too spicy. But we do want to taste more salt than pepper unless you're really into pepper. So, we'll add in 5% salt in the form of Kosher salt. If you have table salt you'll want to cut that amount in 1/2 as table salt or the sodium level of table salt is about twice that of Kosher salt. After the salt we'll focus on peppers, let's add about 3% in the form of coarse ground black pepper. We want some bite but not too much so 3% should be right on the money. And last but not least spices. Up to now we have sort of a briny sweet liquid with a heavy base of tomatoes and some sweetness that comes through from the sugars. So let's get some spices into the mix by adding in 3% paprika for smokiness and flavor along with a 1% mix of oregano. And while we're at it we'll add a savory palate expanding note by adding 1% onion powder and 1% garlic powder, 1% olive oil. Now I might add a subtle substitution is possible here. If you want your sauce to come out somewhat smoky in flavor you can trade 1% of the paprika for 1% of liquid smoke. The smoke will round out the flavor and give you that nose tickling note that most people expect when they taste barbecue sauce.
The total percentages add to 100%. With everything in the bowl let's go ahead and mix that. Take a separate teaspoon and take a quick taste. If you like it more spicy, increase the pepper, more salty then move up the salt mix, sweeter or more tomatoes then you know what to do.
Take the mix and put into a small pot and cook until it comes to a boil. Turn off the heat stirring continually then allow the mixture to mature for about 5 minutes. Once matured you can use it right away.
So let's recap with the 1 minute formula. Let's say I want to make a jar of the sauce so we'll use this 10 ingredient 1 minute formula.
8 Ounces tomatoes sauce or puree
1/4 cup Molasses or brown sugar
1/4 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1/2 Teaspoon Oregano
1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Olive Oil
Optional: Liquid smoke
After boiling allow the blend to mature for about 5 minutes then baste on your favorite chicken while on the grill. Or marinate the chicken in the sauce as you prepare the grill.
This blend takes about 1 minute to put together and about 5 minutes to come to boil. As you complete and test the sauce you'll be able to adjust the recipe as needed. But this is the quickest 1 minute barbecue sauce formula around.
Enjoy.
Jake's Famous Foods
