BBQ Sauce

BBQ sauce taste testing: Not a bad job!

Perhaps no American dish, with the exception of chili, has more regional variations (and passionate adherents to those variations) than barbecue. The basic components of classic barbecue sauce are simple; tomatoes, usually in the form of ketchup or paste; a sweetener (such as cane or brown sugars, molasses, honey, or, in some bottled sauces, high-fructose corn syrup); vinegar; spices; and oftentimes tangy/heat ingredients such as mustard and chilies. But as BBQ aficionados will tell you, the secret to a first-rate BBQ sauce lies in how well these ingredients are balanced and blended.

And while purists may quibble that some ingredients are more "authentic" than others, the experts tell us that there are actually significant regional differences in what constitutes a good sauce. Barbecue guru Richard Wachtel offers an excellent article explaining these differences on his Grilling with Rich site. Likewise, James Boo posts a similar explanation on the foodie site Serious Eats.

Barbecue sauces are typically judged on taste, aroma, consistency and color. Predictably, these factors are subject to disagreement among reviewers. Some prefer a sweeter sauce, others prefer more tomatoes and vinegar; some loathe chili peppers, while others are only satisfied with the hottest sauce known to humanity. Arguably, tasters' palates aren't entirely immune to a preference for what they "grew up with," and we suspect that this is the foundation of many a difference of opinion among BBQ-sauce critics. Nevertheless, we find that the best of the review sources do try to remain unbiased by any possible regional preferences.

The sweetness factor also begs the question -- is high-fructose corn syrup (known in the trade as HFCS) really necessary in commercially bottled sauce? While this point would never have come up in reviews of a decade ago, it's very much an issue today. Many of the better bottled barbecue sauces, as the review site Cook's Illustrated points out, choose to use molasses (a traditional BBQ ingredient) or white or brown sugar rather than HFCS. Aside from the health considerations, there's also the cooking factor; some experts say that it's the high-fructose corn-sugar content in cheaper barbecue sauce that causes it to burn more quickly.

Best barbeque sauce reviews

Finding the best reviews for the most widely available barbecue sauces is something of a challenge, because many sites limit their reviews to small batch, gourmet sauces that are only available regionally, or restaurant sauces that can only be purchased onsite. Reading that a certain BBQ sauce is the best in the world is tantalizing enough, without the disappointment of discovering that it's only available during the summer months at a handful of local barbecue festivals. That's why we've primarily focused on those review sources which feature a wide variety of sauces -- including national supermarket brands -- in their tests.

Testing methods generally revolve around the "slurp and slather" approach, where the sauce is slurped straight out of the bottle and also slathered -- either slow-cooked or broiled -- on chicken. However, ConsumerReports.org gets high marks for thoroughness in its methodology. For its May 2011 BBQ sauce taste test, ConsumerReports.org judges were subjected to three days of palate prepping, acclimating their taste buds to a variety of flavors such as tamarind, orange marmalade, herbs and liquid smoke, so that they would recognize these flavors when they encountered them again. In ConsumerReports.org's blind taste test, 10 barbecue sauces are sampled right out of the bottle, broiled on chicken tenders and slow-cooked with chicken thighs.

The results, editors say, prove that not all sauces are equally versatile. While most become more mellow and flavorful during cooking, some don't caramelize as well, and one popular store brand actually tastes better cold out of the bottle. Half of the barbecue sauces are very good, while the other half are too sweet, too ashy or too gelatinous in texture. Bottom line? ConsumerReports.org not only encourages making your own homemade barbecue sauce, but even offers its favorite recipe.

The editors of Cook's Illustrated believe that, while taste preferences may vary by region, there is actually an "all-American supermarket style" of commercially produced barbecue sauce, formulated to appeal to most tastes. Keeping this in mind, they test eight national brands, broiled on chicken and slurped raw out of the bottle as a dunk for chicken nuggets. The determining factor is the sweetener; the panel of 21 tasters agrees that the best barbecue sauces contain a robust dollop of molasses. Cook's Illustrated also brings up the hot topic of high-fructose corn syrup, disclosing their opinion of it and whether or not it's necessary. In the end, they agree with ConsumerReports.org; homemade barbecue sauce still tastes best.

We especially appreciate BBQ Sauce Reviews, a comprehensive website created by barbecue expert Brian Henderson and loaded with information, tips, advice and creditable reviews of more than 100 commercial BBQ sauces, which are rated on a scale of one to five. Henderson not only shares his testing methods, but also imparts valuable ingredient information on each sauce as well. Serious Eats includes as many as 16 national brands of barbecue sauce in its taste test, and concludes that, while homemade is good, there are still some decent bottled brands out there. The editors at barbecue specialty sites such as Insane Chicken, Amazing Ribs and The Meatwave offer well-thought-out reviews, discussing what constitutes the best sauce and why. Finally, we check out the generally well-reasoned, always highly opinionated posts on foodie sites Chowhound and Roadfood, where BBQ sauce fans weigh in with their favorites.