Award Winning BBQ Sauce Recipe {Best Competition Tip!} – Extraordinary BBQ (2024)

I want to try this along with sone others. But can someone tell me why all bbq recipes call for ketchup as the first ingredient? If your already making your own sauce it seems reasonable to make the ketchup, I mean break ot down into ingredients. Ketchup is expensive and I don’t want to use it all up making bbq sauce. Its just tomato past and sugar anyway right?

Substituted smoked sea salt for the plain and it’s a game changer.

i have made this recipe for years – I lost the physical piece of paper with the recipe and spent, no kidding, over an hour scouring the internet for this recipe. It’s that GOOD.

I’ve made this several times, and my son said this is a keeper. I was wondering if I could can this.

Great recipe! I used Dr. Pepper for the soda and subbed out the beer for Jom Beam Devil’s Cut. I also played around with the seasoning as it was cooking to strike the right balance for my taste. I was surprised how food it turned out!

I add drippings from butt wrap or ribs to sauce…glazes up nice and great flavor

I tweeked this sauce up to 20 ingredients and substituted the beer for tequila, the cola for root beer. One of the best sauces I have had in my life. I will be enter this sauce in a competition. Will let everyone know how everything turns out.

I didn’t have any tomato paste, so I used pizza sauce. I like that the recipe just says beer – I added the beer I thought would deliver lots of flavour. I choose my homebrew Porter. And yes. It was nice.
Anyway, followed recipe otherwise. Woohoo good. Thank you.

I won a competition with two variations of this sauce. It is a real hit!

How long do you let it boil before shutting off to cool?

Loved it…i added lemon zest, tabasco, and a tiny bit of liquid smoke

Could you substitute tomato sauce for the ketchup and then sweeten to taste?

Kevin – I’m trying to get a feel for the best ways to modify this sauce for general use. Have you had the best results adding liquids (ie..juices/fruit preserves) or dry spices/seasonings or a combination of both?

Can anyone confirm how much is ” 1c”; like ” 2/3c Brown sugar “; is it supposed to replace grammes

There must be wildly different strengths of tyme in different brands or regions because I’m with the crowd that the flavor killed an otherwise good sauce . I swear it got stronger after sitting for a day too. The day I made it I could taste the sweet and the spice, it was good but had a strong tyme finish that lingered. After a day I could taste nothing but the tyme and it was inedible.

Used this recipe with a fresh onion sauteed with a bit of olive oil, a bit of oregano instead of thyme becauce the thyme here isn’t very good, I used 6 cloves of fresh garlic and one half celery stick, finely chopped. All this cooked down before adding tomatoe .I used balsamic vinegar, some red wine vinegar, brown sugar, german sweet mustard, a very thick tomatoe paste , sea salt , black pepper and a half of jalopeno pepper. Very nice sauce came out. Make any texan very happy.Showing greece how its done, came out just great.

Just for what it’s worth, I made this sauce as an afterthought alongside following you smoked pulled pork recipe. I personally thought the pork much better than the sauce. But everyone (and I mean everyone) complimented me on the sauce. And a number wanted the recipe. So thanks a lot!!!!

I found the thyme flavor to be overpowering as well. I will probably cut down on it in the future. Other than that the sauce is really delicious. I added a bit more cayenne for heat. Thank you for the recipe. Your website is great!

I adapted your sauce and wrote a blog post about it. It’s delicious, thanks!

Used 2 tsp of ground thyme and it seems to overpower the sauce. Will let rest in fridge until Tom.

I have a picky eater with a particularly strong palette. He doesn’t care for the taste of beer in sauces. Can I use 1 cup of soda instead of 1/2 and 1/2, or would that make the sauce too sweet (and/or burn)? Anything you would suggest as an alternative to alcohol?

Used this it’s great

I used paisano wine instead of beer and mountain dew for the soda. It was awesome. It tasted like Arby’s sauce with a kick. Thanks for all the info on this site. I’ve been cooking my whole life and been smoking for a few years. Before finding your site my BBQ was pretty good but now its outstanding. I use temp range and time as a guideline. This has really helped me get over the hump and turn out consistently tender BBQ. The chicken thighs are addictive. Thanks again!

It sounded good, but I just got done cooking it and the thyme is overpowering the rest of the flavors. I’m going to let it rest overnight and check it again in the morning. I’m not sure what happened. I used thyme leaves (dried) and not the powder. Any thoughts on what might have happened?

I’m going to try this using real cane syrup I have 2 large bottles that nobody likes on pancakes so this would work great.

What type of beer and brand you use for this recipe? Use co*ke cola soda too?

What beer do you use?

What kind of soda do you recommend? If cola, what could you recommend to substitute. Trying to get away from the caramel coloring.

Thanks for sharing! One question: Maple Syrup?