It’s not always easy to tell which brand of barbecue sauce is the best on the shelf. There are so many options out there, it’s hard to know which one to choose. Luckily, we’re here to help, and we take our sauces seriously.
There is an art to barbecuing and it starts with making sure you have a few suitable cuts of meat to work with. But to achieve that perfect blend of sweetness, smokiness and acidity, you’ll also need to make sure you’re using a top-notch sauce. That’s why below we’ve rounded up some of the best barbecue sauces out there right now.
In your search for that perfect barbecue sauce, you’ll find dozens of savory and sweet sauces, many of which are available from smaller manufacturers online. To find the best barbecue sauce of 2023, I personally gathered 15 bottles of spicy, smoky, vinegary, sweet and savory sauces, along with some enthusiastic barbecue-loving friends, for an ultimate sauce showdown to find you the best BBQ sauce on the market.
What makes a good barbecue sauce?
Everything is relative, but most pilots agree that balance is the key to a great barbecue sauce. Most sauces are made with a tomato base, vinegar, a little sweetener like honey or molasses, and an element of heat. From there, sauces are fine-tuned with spices and flavors such as mustard, garlic, fruit and smoke. Any sauce that is too overwhelming in any direction usually doesn’t work well. And super simple sauces without a lot of spice or complexity often fall flat.
We tasted a lot of traditional Kansas City-style dips for this list, a bunch of vinegary Carolina-style dips, some keto-friendly dips, Bachan’s favorite Japanese-style dips, and some Alabama white dips to see which ones really tickled our taste buds. We tried each with plain unseasoned chicken breast, as it’s a blank slate as far as classic grilled foods go. While tasting, we noticed things like overall balance, heat, sweetness, overpowering flavors, or anything else that popped — both bad and good.
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A quick note: Up north, sweeter varieties dominate the sauce market, but my testers and I all enjoy vinegar-based sauces, so we’ve included a few Carolina barbecue sauces (among other styles, like Japanese BBQ sauce for umami, or brown sugar-based recipes for that iconic sweet flavor) to make this list as priceless and decadent as possible.
It took a lot of napkins to find the best barbecue sauce in 2023. Here they are.
Full Moon is a regional chain of barbecue restaurants in Alabama and Mississippi that has been in business since 1986. You’re unlikely to find Full Moon’s incredible sauce on store shelves, but it can be purchased online for just $7.49 a bottle. Thank goodness for that, because this classic-style sauce has a near-perfect balance of sweetness, smoke, tang, and spice.
If you prefer to pick up your barbecue sauce from the store, Stubb’s stuff can be found in most supermarkets and is a great alternative to Full Moon. Like the winner above, Stubb’s has a good balance with no single flavor taking over. This one is thick but not smooth and gets its sweetness from brown sugar (no corn syrup) with a good kick from lots of black pepper.
I have been on the Bachan bandwagon for some time now and I have no plans to jump off. Bachan’s is atypical compared to classic barbecue sauces in that it is laced with Japanese flavors, giving it a big umami kick. You’ll immediately notice the soy sauce, along with sesame, ginger and a subtle sweetness. This is one of the thinner sauces, so it may not stick to the ribs and chicken as well or caramelize as much as the others, so it’s probably best used as a finishing sauce.
This rich, dark, smoky sauce is made by a small producer in North Carolina. It’s probably the most flavorful sauce we’ve tried, with a great sweetness that’s cut through with rich, smoky hiko and plenty of heat. There’s a lot going on here, but it harmonizes well to create a very tasty sauce.
At under $3 a bottle, this was a favorite of the “cheap” barbecue sauces and is one you’ll find easily at most grocery stores or on Amazon. The Bull’s-Eye has an incredible sweetness, but gets a great balance from the mustard, garlic and natural hickory smoke. If you run through sauce like water, this is a great sauce to pile on for ribs, chicken, and burgers.
If you’re a hot sauce junkie looking for a barbecue sauce, Texas Pete’s East Carolina Sauce is the one to get. Texas Pete’s is a hot sauce maker, first and foremost, and so this spin on the heavy-vinegar Carolina-style sauce tastes a bit like hot sauce, but with a subtle sweetness and tomato flavor. It’s made with just five ingredients and no corn syrup. At 15 calories per serving, it’s probably the healthiest barbecue sauce on this list.
I’ll be honest, this wasn’t one of the OWN personal favorites, but some of the other tasters with sweeter tendencies were really into it. Sweet Baby Ray’s (hey, it’s right there in the name) is made with corn syrup and pineapple juice and is so sweet it can be overwhelming. It’s also quite thick, almost like a barbecue jam or jelly. If you’re a barbecue lover with a sweet tooth, this is the sauce to stock up on. Plus, it’s cheap at about $2 a bottle.
Other BBQ sauces we tried that didn’t make the cut
- Full Moon Alabama White Sauce: This sauce was positively addictive, but it might be a stretch to call it barbecue sauce. I know Alabamans might not like to hear this, but Full Moon White Sauce is more like a really rich, flavorful ranch with lots of mustard, garlic, and Worcestershire.
- Jack Daniels Original BBQ Sauce: This is another one we all really liked. It has a nice balance and strong spice, but in the end some of the others just took it out on top.
- Good for Food Keto BBQ Sauce: At only 10 calories and 3 grams of carbs per serving, this sauce was definitely edible, although not one of our favorites.
- Kraft Original Barbecue Sauce: This one had very little dimension and tasted more like slightly smoky ketchup than a good BBQ sauce.
- Heinz Carolina Vinegar BBQ Sauce: This sauce wasn’t terrible, but it had too much vinegar for most of us.
- Heinz Carolina Mustard Sauce: This was more like honey mustard than barbecue sauce. Not bad, but it didn’t meet our requirements for this round of testing.
- Kings Delight Bar-B-Que Sauce: This Carolina-style sauce is delicious, but with so much vinegar, it’s less of a traditional barbecue sauce and more of a subtle finishing sauce for pork.
