The Worst Store-Bought Barbecue Sauces Contain This Red Flag Ingredient

Bottled barbecue sauce can be a great way to add a punch of sweet, complex flavor to anything you roast, grill, or bake. But not all of them are made equally, as evidenced by our ranking of popular store-bought barbecue sauce. We wanted some expert advice as to what to look for when buying BBQ sauce off the shelf. Pitmaster Ryan Mitchell, son of legendary Hall of Fame pitmaster Ed Mitchell and co-founder of True Made Foods, gave us pointers on which ingredient to look out for while picking one.

According to Mitchell, high-fructose corn syrup is added to cheaply sweeten sauces and improve shelf stability, and there are multiple reasons to be wary of it. First of all, he said, "It burns. If heated to anywhere near 200 degrees Fahrenheit, high-fructose corn syrup will rapidly dehydrate, caramelize, and burn. For context, water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and as the water evaporates, the sugar will quickly exceed that temperature and burn." He also cautioned that sauces containing high amounts of cane sugar or molasses run the risk of burning as well.

"Many pitmasters think it is 'safe' then to douse their BBQ in sugar, because most smoking techniques cook at 215 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. However, that is the general temp of the air in the smoker. The surface temp of the meat can vary widely, and the sugar in BBQ sauce often gets hotter from being on the meat surface and will burn," said Mitchell.

"American BBQ has gotten sweeter and sweeter over the last few decades, migrating from a savory food that was based on the skill of the pitmaster to essentially a dessert," said Mitchell. Using Sweet Baby Ray's as an example, he explained, "One serving of Sweet Baby Ray's has 16 grams of added sugar and 70 calories per serving (2 tablespoons), which is the equivalent of half a can of soda."

Mitchell said that not every style is that sugary, however. If you want to avoid overly sweet bottled barbecue sauce, he suggested Texas and Carolina barbecue sauces, as they should contain less sugar overall. Those tend to be heavier on the vinegar, along with more spicy notes. He added that store-bought Kansas City-style barbecue sauce is going to be the one that's sweetest, most often containing high-fructose corn syrup as an ingredient. When making his own barbecue sauces, Mitchell prefers to use naturally sweet produce like tomatoes, apples, carrots, butternut squash, dates, and figs to do the heavy lifting without adding refined sugars. 

Mitchell did say there's one time high-fructose corn syrup barbecue sauce can be appropriate. "If your BBQ is really dry, unflavored, or just not great, you should use a really sweet BBQ sauce with a lot of sugar or HFCS because the sugar will mask all the other flavors," he shared. "You can always identify bad BBQ by how much sugar is in the BBQ sauce."