BBQ Sauce

Sorting through taste tests of barbeque sauces

The most credible BBQ sauce reviews come from culinary sources. Specialty-food website TheNibble.com tests dozens of sauce varieties, including bourbon-spiked and sugar-free. Cook's Country (a sister magazine to Cook's Illustrated) selects the best supermarket sauces. Both Food and Wine and Bon Appetit magazines sample dozens of barbeque sauces and crown a handful of winners. David Rosengarten of The Rosengarten Report, a foodie newsletter, rounds up his favorite sauces from Texas. Slate runs a double-blind taste test and in a June 2006 article, Consumer Reports editors taste-test both supermarket and small-batch barbeque sauces.

Forming the second tier of BBQ sauce reviews are consumer critiques. We found sauce recommendations at HomeOfBBQ.com, BBQSauceReviews.com, Chowhound.com and SeriousEats.com. HomeOfBBQ.com is run by Eric Devlin, a certified barbeque-competition judge, but the site's layout makes it a little hard to read and navigate. BBQSauceReviews.com is run by Brian Henderson and a group of barbeque enthusiasts. Both sites rate sauces for flavor, texture, aroma, appearance and packaging/marketing. Noting that some sauces lose their depth during cooking, so BBQSauceReviews.com rates flavor both before and after cooking.

Bottled and jarred BBQ sauce is tough to get right: It should be sweet, smoky, spicy and tangy, but no one flavor should predominate. The texture should be thick enough to coat meat, but not gluey. Onions, garlic, spices and herbs should make their presence felt -- but not too brashly.

Supermarket BBQ sauces are more likely to earn jeers from professional testers than specialty small-batch sauces. Reviewers find little to like about Kraft Original BBQ sauce (*Est. $1.50 for 18 ounces), which gets its gluey texture from corn syrup. Two review sources call it "processed," and Cook's Illustrated says that the smoke flavor tastes "artificial." Slate's testers dislike the surfeit of dried spices. And with 420 mg of sodium per serving, Kraft is one of the saltiest BBQ sauces available.

Like Kraft, Hunt's Original BBQ sauce (*Est. $1.50 for 18 ounces) contains corn syrup. Two review sources call this sauce "mild," and tasters at Slate felt that the "thick, sweet" flavor of this sauce "didn't last." Testers at one professional review source, however, praised its balance of sweetness and acidity.

Open Pit Original BBQ sauce (*Est. $2 for 18 ounces) earns mixed ratings in professional reviews and consumer critiques alike. Reviewers at one professional source deride it as containing too much vinegar and not enough tomato. They also detect a cinnamon flavor that seems out of place.