Choose A Storebought Barbecue Sauce

Purchasing a barbecue sauce rather than making one from scratch saves time. If you know what you're looking for, a store-bought sauce can create just as delicious a barbecue as one you make at home. Nobody has to know that the sauce you serve isn't a family recipe.

Instructions

1. Decide what you're going to barbecue. Almost any sauce can work with vegetables, but to bring out the subtle tastes of meat, poultry and fish, you should match the sauce to its flavor. Tomato-based sauces are especially good at heightening the flavors of red meat, while sauces with notes of honey or mustard bring out the flavor of pork. Poultry picks up spicier sauces well, but it's also good with fruit. Seafood fits in best with subtle sauce that includes lemon or other fruit.

2. Choose a regional sauce to match your barbecue preference. The three main types of American barbecue are Kansas City, Texas and Carolina. A Kansas City-style sauce is thick, sticky and tomato-based. Texas sauces are also tomato-based, but they're thinner, with notes of vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Carolina barbecue depends more on a slow-cooking method than the sauce, but people often use a vinegar-based sauce as a mop and a condiment with this type of barbecue.

3. Determine how you want to use the barbecue sauce. You can use it as a marinade, a mop, a cooking sauce or a condiment. Tomato-based and fruit-based sauces, or sauces high in sugar, burn easily. Use these only for baked dishes, in the final moments of grilling or as a condiment. Use vinegar- or mustard-based sauces at any time in the cooking process.

4. Check the ingredients for the same things you'd add to a homemade barbecue sauce, including natural sweeteners. Many store-bought varieties of barbecue sauces contain high-fructose corn syrup, a cheap sweetener that isn't especially good for you and doesn't impart the best flavor. Sauces high in preservatives don't do justice to your barbecue, either.

5. Consider amending a basic, tomato-based store-bought sauce to create your own signature barbecue sauce. Add your favorite herbs and spices, sweetener, vinegar, fruit, peppers or smoke sauce to customize it.

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