Honey Barbeque Sauce: kansas City Barbeque Sauce

Kansas City Barbeque Sauce

Although there are several distinctly different regional styles of barbecue sauce in the US, the thick red stuff is what most of us reach for when our spouse says "pick up some barbecue sauce, willya?"

If you are no longer living with your parents, you really should have a house sauce made without preservatives, additives, stabilizers, and emulsifiers, so that when your guests ask "what brand of sauce is that?" you can plunk a hand labeled bottle on the table. When they beg you for the recipe, you can then tell them "It's a family secret" and mumble the old saw that ends in "and then I'd have to kill you."

Traditional KC style sauces are always tomato based, and there are a lot of ingredients, but they are easy to assemble and each contributes complexity. The best have multiple sources of sweetness (brown sugar, molasses, honey, and onion - which gets sweet when it is cooked); multiple sources of tartness (vinegar, lemon juice, hot sauce, and steak sauce); multiple sources of heat (American chili powder, black pepper, mustard, and hot sauce); and it gets layers of flavor from all the above as well as ketchup, Worcestershire, garlic, and salt. It's not a KC Masterpiece, but it is a KC Classic. Try it and you'll never use the bottled stuff again.