The Best Homemade Sweet Barbeque (bbq) Sauce Recipe with Ginger

When we have people over for dinner, they are often surprised to learn that we make homemade barbecue sauce. It turns out, few people do. Most settle for Sweet Baby Rays or Bullseye, which are OK if you like artificial smoke in your sauce. I guess when it comes to barbecue sauce, I'm a bit of a purist.

My family recipe for bbq sauce has been around for several years and we often call it secret sauce. This barbecue sauce recipe creates a sweet sauce, with a little spice provided by ginger and an optional fruit ingredient. It's very easy to make bbq sauce and as long as you have all the ingredients on hand, you can make it in about 10 minutes.

To make homemade barbecue sauce, I recommend using a pairing knife, measuring cups and spoons, a blender and a pot to cook the sauce once it's all mixed.

Secret sauce homemade barbeque sauce recipe:

• Blend one onion,
  
• 3/4 C. soy sauce, fresh garlic (2cloves)
  
• 1 t. dry ginger (or use fresh)
  
• 1/2 C. catsup
  
• 1/2 C. brown sugar, packed
  
• 1/4 C. sherry (or any wine you have handy).
• Optionally add fruit preserves to taste

After the barbecue sauce is mixed in the blender, cook it on a medium temperature until it comes to a light boil.  Let it cool and serve over chick, pork tenderloin, baby back ribs or spare ribs.  All of these taste delicious with this sauce. 

* One note about this bbq sauce recipe.  You'll notice that soy sauce is one of the main ingredients.  This gives the bbq sauce an asian style flavoring.

I think homemade bbq sauce goes best with pork and chicken.  Typically, I'll grill my chicken breast or pork tenderloin and then brush or mop it with sauce near the end.  If I cook it this way, I usually just garlic salt and pepper the meat and sauce it at the end.

While I really love my homemade sauce there are several others that are delicious as well.  One of my favorites is by M from the food network.  His sauce has a unqiue coffee flavor as one of the ingredients is a shot of espresso.  I've made this recipe several times and people really love the sauce and it's easy to make at home.  So easy a 14 year old can easily make it.

    •    4 tablespoons mashed and minced garlic
    •    4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    •    1 cup cider vinegar
    •    1/2 cup soy sauce
    •    2 cups ketchup
    •    2 cups honey
    •    Grey salt
    •    2 demitasse cups espresso (or about 1/2 cup of strong coffee or instant espresso)

Fresh ground black pepper
Mash garlic with the side of a knife and then mince finely to release oils.
Add olive oil to a preheated saute pan. Add the garlic and saute until it gets light brown, about 1 minute. Add cider vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup, and honey and stir well. Add a pinch of grey salt, then whisk in the coffee. Add freshly ground black pepper, to taste. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 10 minutes.
Let cool and store in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

The homemade bbq sauce is a very important part of great tasting barbecue.  There are lots of options on how to apply homemade bbq sauce to your meat.  Here are a few options.  If you have low enough heat and there isn't risk of the sugar in the sauce catching fire and burning your meat, then it can work out nicely to marinade your meat in the homemade sauce for 24 hours before cooking.  More typically, bbq sauce is applied near the end of the cook to finish the meat off.  I personally like to reserve some extra sauce at the end to pour over the meat once I have it sliced and in a large bowl.

To mop homemade bbq sauce onto your meat, I recommend using a mop brush.  I have been avoiding my cloth brushes in favor of a silicon type brush.  This seems to avoid little strands of fibr getting on the brush.