[Updated on July 7, 2020] Need a sweet, sticky, delicious, easy homemade barbecue sauce recipe for your summer grilling? This one has a surprise ingredient – a shot of booze!
Has this ever happened to you? You defrost something that you want to slather with barbecue sauce, confident that you have barbecue sauce in your refrigerator or pantry, only to find out you don’t when it’s time to fix dinner? Yep – that happened to me; just the other day!
[convertkit form=5145210]So what do you do?
You make Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce!
I’m just like every other working woman (and that includes stay-at-home moms, too) – no time and definitely no time for a “backup plan” when it’s time for dinner! I think I’m lucky if I’ve planned ahead in the morning what I’m going to make for dinner that same night.
On this particular evening, I’d defrosted a rack of baby back ribs. In fact, I even went so far the day before to coat the ribs in my 12 Ingredient Dry Rub for Baby Back Ribs, wrapped them up, and refrigerated them overnight. Imagine that – I’d planned dinner two-days in advance.
So, imagine my surprise when I was ready to stick those babies on the grill to make my Rubbed, Roasted, and Grilled Barbecue Baby Back Ribs, and I went to the refrigerator to get out my bottle of favorite barbecue sauce only to find nothing!
“No worries,” I thought to myself. “I’ll get a new bottle out of the pantry.”
Wrong! No spare, unopened bottle in the pantry either!
Shockingly, there were no leftovers lying around to activate a “backup plan”.
I was far enough along in dinner preparations that I wasn’t going to chop onions and garlic to make my homemade BBQ sauce from scratch. I wanted something I could throw together in minutes because my ribs had already been in the oven for more than an hour and they were ready for the grill! Time’s awastin’ – had to make barbecue sauce now!
How to Make Easy BBQ Sauce from Ketchup
I opened my spice drawer and started hauling out anything and everything that I thought would be good for a homemade barbecue sauce recipe. Then to the pantry for apple cider vinegar, honey, brown sugar, and whiskey. Finally, to the refrigerator for ketchup. “This will work – barbecue sauce made from ketchup,” I thought to myself.
I sauteed the spices in a little bit of olive oil for a few minutes. Then I added the ketchup, vinegar, honey, and brown sugar to the saucepan and turned the heat up, stirring the mixture a couple of times. I removed it from the heat, added the shot of whiskey, then returned the saucepan to the stovetop and brought the mixture to a boil. I gave the sauce another stir and removed it from the heat. Voila, easy homemade barbecue sauce in a pinch!
Can I tell you that it did, indeed, work? My Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce is delicious with just the right combination of sweet and tangy plus the shot of booze kicks it up a notch! Yum!
My Rubbed, Roasted, and Grilled Barbecue Baby Back Ribs were saved from disaster and I created a new recipe for this blog! A win-win!
Blue is my favorite color and I love these photos I took of my Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce. So moody with just enough light from the gloaming of a summer evening.
While the ribs were grilling, I ran around the house gathering various things for the photoshoot. The tablecloth belonged to Charlie’s aunt and is a cherished treasure evoking many wonderful times together at his family’s ranch. The two platters are new purchases from an antique store. The seller did some DIY on old silver platters painting some in chalkboard paint and making mosaics from broken pottery and plates on others. I just fell in love with them!
The mosaic platter had feet. I placed the chalkboard platter on a pretty tree trunk wooden board and I placed the slicing tools on a smaller, pretty striped chopping board.
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A sweet, sticky, delicious, easy homemade barbecue sauce recipe for summer grilling, this one has a surprise ingredient: booze! #bbqsauce Click To Tweet
Decorative Items Used for this Table Display
I know when you see things on blogs and other websites, sometimes you want to know where to get them. And, since I either inherited or bought some of these things from antique stores, I thought I’d share a few helpful links to similar items:
The peacock salt and pepper shakers were gifts from family for my expanding peacock collection, which you can read about here – A Peacock Tale: Decorating the Table for a Special Celebration!
Will you do me a favor? Would you share my post on social media? The pinnable images scattered throughout this post are for your Pinterest boards so that you can bookmark this post and come back to it later. Thanks for sharing!
The photo above is pinnable, too! Make this your go-to recipe for emergencies and keep this recipe in your back pocket (on your Pinterest board) or by printing it so that when you are in a pinch for barbecue sauce, you don’t have to eat a PB&J sandwich instead!
Other Ideas for Using Homemade Barbecue Sauce
Slathering this barbecue sauce all over pork baby back ribs is only one way to use this easy, delectable sauce. Plus, if you have leftover sauce from this recipe, don’t throw it out! Plan another meal using the photo collage below for ideas:
Meal ideas in the photo collage above:
Top row left to right: BBQ chicken thighs, barbecue beef ribs, meatloaf smeared with barbecue sauce
Middle row left to right: barbecue pulled chicken sandwiches, BBQ chicken drumsticks, barbecue chicken pizza
Bottom row left to right: chicken nuggets with a side of BBQ sauce, barbecue baked beans, barbecue chicken wings
And, you can use this easy BBQ sauce recipe in my Ranch Hands’ BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Spicy Coleslaw. Ten meal ideas using one sauce recipe! Now that’s a versatile and simple kitchen hack if l say so myself!
Here’s the recipe for Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce in a Pinch:
PrintHow to Make Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce in a Pinch
Has this ever happened to you? You defrost something that you want to slather with barbecue sauce, confident that you have barbecue sauce in your refrigerator or pantry, only to find out you don’t when it’s time to fix dinner? What do you do? You make Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce! This DIY BBQ sauce recipe is ketchup-based with several spices and 2 surprise ingredients. All these flavors meld together to make the best BBQ sauce ever for ribs, chicken, and other grill favorites. This sauce takes minutes to throw together. A great alternative when you don’t have bottled barbecue sauce around! It’s delicious with just the right balance of sweet and tangy.
- Prep Time: 2 mins
- Cook Time: 8 mins
- Total Time: 10 mins
- Yield: 1 cup 1x
- Category: Sauce
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons dried sliced onions
- 1 teaspoon steak seasoning
- 1/8 teaspoon cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 tablespoons whiskey
Instructions
- In saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-low heat.
- Add spices (onions, steak seasoning, cumin, crushed red pepper flakes, granulated garlic) and saute for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Add ketchup, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and honey and increase heat to medium, stirring to combine.
- Cook over medium heat about 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat and add whiskey.
- Return to heat, bring to a boil, stir and then remove from heat.
- Serve on the side or use on your favorite ribs, steak, chicken, pork chops, etc.
Kitchen Tools and Supplies Needed to Make This Homemade Barbecue Sauce Recipe
Saucepan || Wooden Spoon || Ketchup || Brown Sugar || Apple Cider Vinegar || Honey || Dried Onion || Steak Seasoning || Cumin || Crushed Red Pepper Flakes || Granulated Garlic
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Related Posts from Toot Sweet 4 Two’s Archives
Simple Kitchen Hack: 12-Ingredient Dry Rub for Ribs
Rubbed, Roasted and Grilled Barbecue Baby Back Ribs
Summer’s Best Peaches with Mascarpone and Passionfruit Drizzle
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I’ve been in a pinch so many times. Love that I can make this with things I already have in my pantry (less the Whiskey).
Whiskey optional – it still tastes great! I know – I mean about bring in a pinch! Happens more than I care to admit because I’m a little absent-minded! Thanks for stopping by!
This does sound easy! I love that it uses common ingredients. I have everything to make it on hand except the whiskey.
It is so easy; and the whiskey part is really optional. Thanks for stopping by!
You are one creative lady! Sounds like a great sauce and you invented it so quicly.
Thanks for the kudos, Carol! Love that we share the same name!