Healthy, Kansas City Style 2-Minute Barbecue Sauce
Barbecue sauce is the quintessential American staple and can be used for dipping, grilling, smothering, and flavoring various meats and vegetables.
Sadly, almost all store-bought barbecue sauces today are filled with toxic ingredients that will leave our bodies inflamed and destined for disease. Ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, GMO vinegar and additives like modified food starch, natural flavors and sodium benzoate (a known carcinogen) do not belong in our barbecue sauce let alone our food supply! These awful ingredients are completely unnecessary to make a delicious barbecue sauce yet they are widely used.
The Simplicity of Making Your Own Barbecue Sauce
Making a health-promoting barbecue sauce that tastes heavenly is actually quite simple. The whole food ingredients are very easy to find and combining them to make this crazy-good barbecue sauce will only take you two minutes! We use this sauce on everything from ribs and chicken fingers to grass-fed barbecue burgers.
Let’s Talk About the Whole Food Ingredients for Your Barbecue Sauce
Here, I will share with you the specific ingredients that I use to make this barbecue sauce. If you use different brands, your BBQ sauce will not taste the same and you may find yourself eating the added ingredients that you were trying to avoid in the first place.
- Ketchup is the base of this sauce. It’s not Heinz ketchup that is loaded with the awful ingredients I mentioned above. Please don’t buy that! Vote with your dollars and buy from companies that put an effort forth to create healthful foods with only whole food ingredients. This is our favorite ketchup because it’s organic and every ingredient is readable. Plus, it tastes great!
- Liquid Smoke is an ingredient you will absolutely need for this recipe. However, you shouldn’t just go out and buy the quickest store bought one you can find. Liquid smoke if often loaded with gluten, artificial flavors and colors, MSG and hidden preservatives which are harmful to your body. The cleanest and best liquid smoke we have found is this one. It lasts a long time and it has ONE ingredient – liquid smoke.
- Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother. It is raw and unfiltered too making it even more beneficial.
- Raw Local Honey is the best kind of honey to purchase. It still has all the living enzymes intact and is wonderfully immune boosting. When you buy the pasteurized stuff, all you’re getting is pasteurized, dead honey that really should just be called sugar. We get ours from a local apiary (find one near you) but if you can’t find any local to you then we like this kind too.
- Buy organic spices. I have written about buying organic spices here and here if you want to learn more. Non-organic are often contaminated with heavy metals among other things. They’re not a gimmick! We like to buy organic spices from here and here.
Healthy, Kansas City Style 2-Minute Barbecue Sauce
- 1½ C. Organic Ketchup
- 1 tsp. Liquid Smoke (be sure it's MSG and gluten free - see my fav. brand in post)
- 1 Tlbs. Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother
- ⅛ tsp. Organic Ground Cloves
- ¼ tsp. Organic Ground Allspice
- ½ tsp. Organic Ground Garlic Powder
- ½ tsp. Himalayan or Sea Salt
- 2 tsp. Raw Honey (local if possible)
- Place all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together.
- Enjoy!
For Your Next Barbecue
I dare you to make this for your next barbecue! It truly is delicious. I usually make some up last minute because I forget that we’ll need it as a condiment and I love that it only takes me a few minutes.
Thanks for this barbecue sauce recipe. It’s super quick to make and delicious!