The Only Way To Stop BBQ Sauce From Sticking To Your Grill

Barbecue sauce is a great condiment to use while grilling, but there's a key problem many of us run into while we're cooking with it: It loves to stick to the grill. That stickiness causes issues like chicken skin tearing off, potentially causing a pretty disappointing loss. We spoke to Shannon Snell, pitmaster at Sonny's BBQ, to get some advice on how to keep this from happening.

First of all, it's important to address why this happens. Snell says that it's the sugar in the barbecue sauce that's the culprit. That's because once sugar reaches a certain temperature, it caramelizes, turning it extra-sticky, which is what adheres your food to the grill. This is why Snell says, "Barbecue sauces should be added to food at the end of the cooking process as they only need 20 to 25 minutes to caramelize and not stick to the grill."

So really, it's about the time factor. As tempting as it is to want to get a reduced sugary glaze on your drumsticks, it's probably best not to put the raw meat straight on the grill with sauce already on it. Instead, you'll want to add the sauce at the end to prevent the dreaded sticking.

There is one other thing you can do to try and keep the ribs from sticking. Shannon Snell advises, "Clean and oil the grates regularly with a high smoke point cooking oil." This contributes to seasoning the metal — essentially making it nonstick — which will give you an assist when it comes to the barbecue sauce. Oils with high smoke points include safflower oil, rice bran oil, and grapeseed oil.

But really, the easiest thing is just to be mindful of your cooking time. If you've got something you want to coat in barbecue sauce and give some color to on the grill (which I still highly recommend), just make sure you put the sauce on towards the end. And definitely clean the grill grates right after you're done cooking, which will ensure your next grilling session won't be a sticky mess. Grilling with barbecue sauce doesn't have to be a disaster, as long as you follow the one easy-to-remember rule about time. If you grill with barbecue sauce for too long, you might be flirting with disaster.