Traditional BBQ Sauce

I grew up on a Memphis BBQ cooking style with a Carolina-style mustard sauce. That means a savory dry rub on a pork shoulder smoked or grilled low and slow for hours on end. Let me say it louder for the people in the back, BBQ is pulled pork! BBQ is a dish, not a verb, and not just any meat thrown on a grill. Whew, okay, had to get that out of the way first!

The biggest difference in the way I grew up eating it and what you will see on a Memphis restaurant table is the BBQ sauce. Traditionally, it would be served with a tomato-based sauce that has a sweet and spicy tang. Since I grew up on Carolina gold sauce, that means I also didn’t eat a lot of BBQ flavored things, such as BBQ chicken. Then, I hosted a cookout for work for colleagues coming from all over the Southeast. I wanted everyone to love my BBQ and not be hung up on not having the “right” sauce, so I started playing with all kinds of flavor combinations. Ultimately I ended up with a ketchup-based sauce, a vinegar sauce, a Carolina gold sauce, and a plain old out-of-the-bottle sauce. For those interested, these were cleverly named “Tennessee Trash”, “North Carolina Nasty”, “Hartwell Heaven”, and “Florida Followers”… not to represent their taste, but as a slight diss to the states being represented at the party that weren’t in my territory (SC & GA).

This BBQ sauce is so versatile, I’ve started using it in many different ways and have even become a fan of barbecued chicken! My favorite ways outside of the classic pulled pork are on my chicken and broccoli meatballs (recipe coming soon!), basting a meat (like chicken) toward the end of a cook, or dipping all kinds of vegetables in (look for my carrot fries recipe in the comin days).