West Tennessee Thick and Sticky BBQ Sauce

Name: West Tennessee Thick and Sticky BBQ Sauce
Yield: makes about 3 pints
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1/2 onion, diced; 2 garlic cloves, smashed and minced; 4 cups ketchup; 1/2 cup water; 2 cups distilled white vinegar; 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce; 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar; 1 tablespoon Colman’s dry mustard; 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes; 2 teaspoons sea salt; 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 1/2 lemon, cut in half

December 14, 2011

Any recipe for barbecue sauce is bound to be contentious, no matter the formula. That’s because there are as many versions of this master sauce as there are Southerners willing to defend them as definitive. Whether thick or runny, tomato-based or vinegar, all Southern barbecue sauces get their complex flavor by playing on the contrasts between spicy and sweet, tangy and smoky. I’m nonpartisan enough to appreciate them all, but of course I’m partial to the western Tennessee strains—one sharp and vinegary, the other sweet and tomato-thick—I grew up on. With tomato, vinegar, and a dash of mustard, this all-purpose hybrid version offers the best of all worlds.

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