Home made BBQ sauce,why use ketchup?

[smoking shawn86]

why does every BBQ sauce I find, the main ingredient is ketchup.Can a BBQ sauce be made with out using ketchup,if so does anyone have a recipe that they would like to share

 

[bhawkins]

I have wanted to know the same thing! I have a recipe that uses a lot of ketchup. Was told it's not a BBQ sauce but a great steak sauce! I haven't posted much, been to busy reading! Lot of info to sort through!

 

[goinforbroke]

It's a good thickening agent in my experience.  And if you ask me, every bbq sauce is deserving of some tomato aspect to balance out the flavors of bitter, sweet, sour, salty... I even put Korean fermented black bean paste in mine, though you'd never know it was there.  for the fifth taste, umami.  Dale's marinade works here too, due to the Soy base.

 

[smoking shawn86]

I know what you mean I'm the same way.what ever spikes my interest at that time I'll try to find as much info on it as I can

 

[goinforbroke]

I've also made sauces (finishing) without ketchup and it ultimately becomes a vinegar-fest.   Something needs to balance the vinegar and all it's tartness.  Besides sugar.  

 

[fagesbp]

Last year I made a diabetic friendly sauce using tomato sauce and coke zero instead of ketchup. It came out great and you'd never know. The ketchup is pretty much just taking the shortcut of cooking the tomato sauce down with sugar.

 

[smoking shawn86]

dose using tomato sauce give a different taste.this summer I will add some past tomatoes to my family's garden plans for next year.I plane to use them to make tomato sauce

 

[dewetha]

i started out with the notion of going with organic tomato paste and add in spices. i actually have "Ketchup" spice from Spice barn.i was doing that for a while but one day i needed to make a sauce and didn't have the supplies so i used ketchup. since it tasted good i kept using it. It take a lot of time to get sauces just right and ketchup seams to be a very good shortcut to a solid base.

 

[dirtsailor2003]

 I think a lot of it comes down to marketing and ease. Heinz had one of the first published BBQ sauce recipes. Guess what the number one ingredient was! 

Most people don't want to take the time to process the raw tomatoes to create the sauce. It really isn't all that bad, especially if you do a bunch of canning and make tomato sauce and paste anyways.Since ketchup is mainly vinegar, salt ,sugar and spices you will need to add more of these. One nice thing is you wont have all the preservatives! With that said your bottle of sauce can't sit around in the fridge for half a year. If you plan on storing it you will need to can it. We can ours per the guidelines from the National Center for Home Food Preservation. 

 

[jarjarchef]

It is a short cut that has become comon practice........

As mentioned earlier it takes time to cook tomatoes down and develop flavors. People don't want to take the time.........

 

[smoking shawn86]

with my experience in cooking when you take time to cook things down they develop a much deeper flavor.So if I can find a recipe that doesn't use ketchup I will give it a try and I will let you guys know how it comes out

 

[jarjarchef]

I have several recipes at work on file. I will look to see if I have one for you to start with. What style of sauce are you wanting? Sweet, spicy, tangy, thick, thin.........

 

[smoking shawn86]

If you don't mind I would like to try them all, they all sound great thanks a lot

 

[jarjarchef]

I'll see what I can find for you.....

One of the things I did was search the net and see what was out there and then play with them. Most of what I found were bogus and needed help in my opinion. I had a function to host where the guest had to make a different BBQ sauce. we gave them copies of the recipes without amounts and asked them to recreate or improve what they had in front of them. Had some interesting results. I'll see if I have those and send your way.

 

[so ms smoker]

  SoFlaQuer  has a nice mustard sauce that I need to make again. Then there are the North Carolina vinegar based sauces you might want to try.

  Mike

 

[smoking shawn86]

I'm the person that doesn't mind talking a lot of time to cook or make some thing.To me the things you make at home are the best.I am becoming a more self reliant person the more I learn about making things from scratch the more knowledge I gain.I know that sound crazy to people in this day in age,when you can go to the store buy it.

 

[jerseydrew]

i've always thought the same. i may try some tomato paste and try reducing it with water till i get a consistency i like. 

 

[chef jimmyj]

There are a ton of Ketchup recipes online. Pick one you like and go from there adding the BBQ Sauce ingredients you like. The more Tomato Paste the recipe has the less time simmering to reduce it there will be...JJ

 

[smoking shawn86]

I make a great BBQ sauce use ketchup I just wanted to try using tomato sauce

 

[linguica]

If you try this ketchup recipe you will never use store bought again.   

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/128896/ketchup-recipe

I substitute agave syrup for the corn syrup and splenda cup to a cup sugar replacement for the sugar to make a low glycemic  version.

It makes an excellent BBQ sauce base