Texas-Style Barbecue Sauce ~~~Spicy and Not Too Sweet!

Knowing that there will be a lot of people BBQing for the 4th of July weekend, I thought this would be a great recipe to post about.

 

Believe it or not, the town we originally come from, Chicago is a big BBQ town. People just love spareribs and chicken there. I am not sure why, though it could have something to do with it having been the heart of the meat packing industry well into the last century. All I know is that every neighborhood their own special BBQ joint. The restaurant reflecting the taste of the the ethnic group that live in the neighborhood.

 

My husband always found the BBQ sauce to be overly sweet and bland. We didn’t eat a lot of BBQ in those days. Then we moved down to Galveston Texas. BBQ sure is different there! It’s a dry rub. The BBQ is cooked for hours in smoke houses. What was really great was finding sauces that were not overly sweet. They have a real kick to them. Hot is in for Texas!

 

Even though I am a vegetarian, I am always looking for a great BBQ sauce. We use it for veggie burgers. I do pulled seitan. We have even used BBQ sauce when we grill corn on the cob. This makes the corn so much sweeter and it doesn’t dry out like it normally does.

 

If you do love BBQ spareribs or chicken and you are in Galveston, the place we send people to is Leon’s World’s Finest In & out BBQ House.

 

We had been using bottle BBQ sauce, but never found one that could compare to what we had at Leon’s. So a while ago, I decided to look for a recipe that would work for us. You wouldn’t believe how much sugar all those BBQ sauces use. Then I stumbled across this recipe for Texas Style BBQ Sauce at 12tomatoes. It’s great. It was adapted from a recipe from Texas A & M.

 

Texas Style Barbecue Sauce

 

Ingredients

 

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup minced onion

1 medium clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 cups tomato juice

3/4 cup distilled white vinegar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon mustard powder mixed with 1 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon minced chipotle chile in adobo sauce

2 tablespoon dark molasses

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

 

We love it! It looks like a lot of ingredients, but really isn’t. And the results were great! Check out the rest of the recipe at 12tomatoes. I hope you check it out!

 

Enjoy!

 

Marcey