#bbq-sauce

#bbq-sauce

While all of the sauces on this list offered up generally similar base flavors (which is to say, they were all going for some sort of take on BBQ sauce), they ultimately boasted various additions and complexities that made them differ significantly. Successful sauce flavors managed to balance any sweet, tangy, and possibly spicy flavors well, while those less successful flavors - including one flavor that stood out as the worst by a landslide - missed the mark entirely.

Convenient at a pinch and good for hints of smoke in your cooking, but store-bought BBQ definitely couldn't hold a candle to homemade. If you've ever tasted genuine, made-from-scratch BBQ sauce, you'll find the grocery store version to be a lot more toned down and lack some characters to it. Good news: you don't have to use sad, weakly-flavored sauce. It could be much, much tastier with the addition of one ingredient: jam.

Bachan's small-batch Japanese-style BBQ sauces, particularly the Hot Honey variant, stand out for their bold umami flavor, blending sweetness and heat excellently.

BBQ sauce, when mixed with ranch dressing, creates a new, exciting flavor profile that combines bold smokiness with a soothing tangy undertone.