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Sauce

Homemade BBQ Sauce I

A homemade barbecue sauce made from ketchup, onions, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar and chili powder.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,099 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Homemade BBQ Sauce I

Timearound 15 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Sauté the onions and then add the remainder of the ingredients.

  2. Cook on low heat for around 15 minutes until the mixture thickens.

Brush and serve

  1. Then brush on your favorite meat.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ketchup + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + apple cider vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Apple cider vinegar + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ketchup
Forms the sauce base and provides body, sweetness and tang.
Onions
Sautéing builds a savory, aromatic flavor base for the sauce.
Apple cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet and savory flavors.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth from fermented ingredients that rounds out the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce brown and thicken as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking on low heat until it thickens. Ketchup and brown sugar are high in sugar and scorch easily over strong heat. Gentle, low heat lets water evaporate slowly, so the sauce thickens evenly without burning on the bottom of the pan.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ketchup, apple cider vinegar, sauce, sugar):

  1. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ketchup, apple cider vinegar, sauce, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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