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Barbecue Sauce for Any Meat

A savory barbecue sauce made with bacon, honey, orange, and pecans.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Barbecue Sauce for Any Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the seasoning

  1. Combine the seasoning mix ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a 2-quart saucepan, fry the bacon over high heat until crisp.

  2. Stir in the onions.

  3. Cover the pan and continue cooking until the onions are dark brown, but not burned, about 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. Stir in the seasoning mix and cook about 1 minute.

  5. Add the stock, chili sauce, honey, pecans, orange juice, lemon juice, orange and lemon rinds and pulp, garlic, and Tabasco, stirring well.

  6. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking about 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

  7. Remove the orange and lemon rinds.

  8. Continue cooking and stirring about 15 minutes more to let the flavors marry.

  9. Add the butter and stir until melted.

  10. Remove from heat.

  11. Let cool about 30 minutes.

Finish and blend

  1. Pour into a food processor or blender and process until pecans and bacon are finely chopped, about 10 to 15 seconds.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

859Calories
37 gProtein
52 gFat
70 gCarbs

Counts 14 of 15 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 14 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Beef100g cooked250
Pecans1 oz (28g / ~19 halves)196
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Honey1 tbsp (21g)64
Orange Juice1 medium (131g)62
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bacon1 slice cooked (8g)43
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Saucenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Renders fat and adds smoky, savory flavor to the base.
Onions
Cooked to dark brown, they add sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that the sauce simmers and reduces in.
Honey
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce become glossy and thick.
Chili sauce
Provides tomato-based body, sweetness and tang.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded finish when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions to dark brown. Onions cooked until dark brown develop deep, sweet flavor through browning, but burned onions turn bitter and spoil the whole sauce. Keep the heat controlled and stir occasionally.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, garlic, beef, honey, orange, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, garlic, beef, honey, orange, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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