Carolina BBQ Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup mustard
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tbsp apricot jam
- 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Instructions
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Making your Carolina BBQ sauce is simple. Blend all the ingredients together and use it on the meat.
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I recommend warming the sauce before eating it (BBQ sauce is always better when warm).
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You can use this as a marinade, a finishing sauce, or both. It's important to note that if you use a sauce for a marinade or any leftover juice, you need to start over fresh. Someone could get very sick if you try to make a finishing sauce out of the leftover marinade.
Notes
You can use any kind of mustard that you like for this Carolina BBQ sauce. Yellow mustard is the most common, but I like stone-ground mustard. Dijon might also be a good choice.
I use honey and brown sugar. You could vary that and use all honey, all brown sugar, demerara, turbinado, or muscovado sugars. You could also use a sugar substitute. You'll need to adjust the amounts because most sugar alternatives, like stevia, are much sweeter than sugar.
Apple cider vinegar provides the acid compound. The acid helps to break down tougher cuts of meat and cuts the cloying sweetness. You could also use lemon or lime juice.
The original Carolina BBQ sauce recipe called for ketchup and not apricot jam, but I wanted to stay in the golden color. And the jam blends nicely with the mustard. You could use almost any kind of sauce or jam, depending on the flavor that you want to achieve.
Worcestershire sauce adds the savory umami factor that nothing else can bring. You could try soy sauce or tamari as a substitute.
Spices are very subjective. I like onion and garlic, but I like them more subtle, so I use powders. If you like sharper flavors, you can use fresh spices. And the amount of cayenne is up to you as well. I like mine with a bit of a bite, but you can tone it down or kick it up a notch if you like.