Kansas City Barbecue Sauce
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Please welcome Hank Shaw as he continues on his tour through barbecue sauces, this time with a Kansas City style barbecue sauce. ~Elise
To me, Kansas City barbecue sauces are thick, tomato-based sauces that are just as sweet as they are spicy. Endless variations are possible, but the sweet-thick-tomatoey elements need to be there for KC BBQ.
This is a sort of apple-y version, with sweetness from both brown sugar and apple juice as well as an acid kick from cider vinegar. I add a little smoky chipotle powder, too, just because I like it; chipotle is not generally used in traditional KC barbecue.
The cayenne added at the end is purely optional: I like things hot, but if you really can’t take heat, omit the cayenne and cut the chili powder down to 1 teaspoon instead of a tablespoon.
This sauce will mature as it cooks. It needs at least 30 minutes to come together, but can cook for hours if you simmer it gently enough. Taste it periodically, and adjust the salt and heat as you go: Remember it’s easy to add more salt and spice, impossible to remove it.
Slather this sauce on slow-cooked chicken, ribs, pork or even beef. Don’t put it on until the end of the cooking process, though, because the sugar in it will caramelize fast… and the burn. Leave it to the final 10-20 minutes of cooking. Then brush a little on right when you serve.
Kansas City Barbecue Sauce Recipe
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This makes enough sauce for 10-20 chicken legs or thighs, 4 racks of ribs or a regular pork shoulder.
Ingredients
- 2 cups tomato sauce or ketchup
- 1/2 cup apple juice
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 5 Tbsp butter
- 3 Tbsp paprika
- 2 Tbsp chili powder
- 1 Tbsp chipotle powder (optional)
- 4 finely chopped garlic cloves
- 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
- Salt to taste
- Cayenne to taste
Method
1 Heat the butter in a pot over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the onion and sauté until it begins to brown. Add the garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes.
2 Pour in the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine. Simmer slowly for at least 30 minutes, and up to 2 hours. Adjust the heat and salt levels with the cayenne and salt right before you plan to use this sauce, which is great on ribs, chicken and pork shoulder.
Makes about 2 1/2 cups.
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This is wonderful. Sounds like a really good recipe and comes at just the right time for me.
Lately I've been having the urge to make many meals with different types of BBQ sauce.
I've been trying a few new sauce recipes, and going through my old work recipes to find some that I used in different restaurants I worked in.
Yesterday I made something different, kind of a BBQ enchilada pie. This sauce sounds like it would work good in it.
I made corn mush*, mixing in some lightly cooked diced green peppers and onion. Mashed half of the mush flat into a an oiled casserole dish. Covered it with a mix of BBQ sauce and shredded pork. Covered that with the rest of the mush. Baked at 350F for 30 minutes and served.
My family thought it was great.
*Corn mush is corn meal normally cooked with chicken broth (as I had it, I used pork broth instead).
Recipe: Dampen 1 cup corn meal with one cup water. Add 3 cups boiling broth to corn meal. Stirring constantly **, cook over med low heat until it thickens to the consistency of peanut butter. Remove from heat.
**If you don't want to worry about burning corn meal to the bottom of your pan, or continually stirring, use a double boiler.
-I couldn't find my double boiler so I used a frying pan with a sauce pan sitting on a couple of strips of aluminum foil to keep the sauce pan off the bottom.