This tangy vinegar barbecue sauce that’s typical of eastern Carolina ‘cue is exactly what you want—nay, need—to temper the richness of a mess of pulled pork, smoked pork shoulder, or a stack of rib. It’s also just as adept at making plain grilled chicken seem special. Chances are you already have everything you need on hand. And it’s done in 10 minutes. You’re welcome.Renee Schettler Rossi

Several open glass bottles of barbecue sauces, including a vinegar barbecue sauce.

Vinegar Barbecue Sauce

4.34 / 6 votes
This vinegar barbecue sauce, made Carolina style, calls for cider vinegar, brown sugar, hot sauce, and has a distinct and acidic-in-a-good-way tang. Use it to douse your BBQ ribs, chicken, pulled pork, or anything you pull from the grill or smoker.
David Leite
CourseCondiments
CuisineSouthern
Servings24 servings | 1 1/2 cups
Calories17 kcal
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time5 minutes
Total Time10 minutes

Ingredients 

  • 1 cup white vinegar
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1 cup ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons hot sauce* (see NOTE below), or to taste
  • 1 dash Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 teaspoons Hungarian paprika
  • Kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper

Instructions 

  • Toss all the ingredients, including salt and pepper to taste, in a saucepan over medium heat and warm gently, stirring occasionally, until warmed through, maybe 5 minutes. No need to bring the mixture to a boil. You’re just letting the flavors mingle.

    ☞ TESTER TIP: If you take a nip of the sauce straight from the spoon, it’s going to taste incredibly eye-puckeringly acidic. Rest assured, once you dribble the sauce over some fatty meat, preferably pork, it’s gonna be perfect.

  • Let the sauce cool slightly. That's it. You're done. Transfer it to a jar, bottle, squeeze bottle, or whatever you want. Screw on the lid and stash it in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Notes

*Note: How To Choose The Right Hot Sauce

Your choice of hot sauce will largely determine just how mouth-tingling your Carolina-style barbecue sauce will be. Reach for your fave and maybe play around a little with the amount the first batch or two until you get it juuuuuuust the way you like it.

Adapted From

Franklin Barbecue

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Nutrition

Serving: 2 tablespoonsCalories: 17 kcalCarbohydrates: 3 gProtein: 0.1 gFat: 0.04 gSaturated Fat: 0.01 gMonounsaturated Fat: 0.01 gSodium: 121 mgFiber: 0.1 gSugar: 3 g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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Recipe © 2015 Aaron Franklin | Jordan Mackay. Photo © 2015 Wyatt McSpadden. All rights reserved.

Recipe Testers’ Reviews

This vinegar barbecue sauce might be the one to convert people to vinegar-based barbecue sauces. On its own, it’s very sharp and bright, too much so, but once mixed with rich, juicy, fatty pulled pork, they harmonize and balance each other perfectly. A must-have in your summer barbecue arsenal. Not to mention every cupboard has these ingredients on hand.

From cupboard to jar, this barbecue sauce took probably 10 minutes to put together. I had it on the stove for 3 to 4 minutes, just long enough to heat it and mix everything uniformly. I added a healthy amount of black pepper (2 teaspoons roughly ground) because I like a lot of it in my barbecue.

We used this on a pork shoulder which I prepared for a weeknight meal by braising it in the slow cooker with onions, Worcestershire, hard cider, and barbecue spice rub. Once the meat was shredded, I added 1/4 cup barbecue sauce and tossed it with some of the cooking juices. Then I piled it high on butter-toasted buns with coleslaw and more sauce. It was perfect. The best pulled pork sandwich I’ve ever made—and with plenty leftovers.

As far as other uses to go, I would hesitate to use this on anything but a rich, fatty meat dish seeing as it is so acidic from the vinegar, it really needs balance. Maybe wings?

I’m a big fan of thick, sweet, Kansas City-type barbecue sauces. This is NOT that type of sauce. But even if you’re like me, there’s a place for a vinegar-based sauce in your barbecue repertoire. It makes smoked pulled pork even more moist and tangy and is a perfect counter to the cool creamy coleslaw that I like to pile on my pulled pork sandwiches. I think this type of barbecue sauce was made for pork but it’s nice on grilled chicken, too.

The recipe couldn’t be easier to put together. Just toss all the ingredients in a saucepan and warm. It’s really as simple as that. The recipe directs you to use salt and pepper to taste. For me that worked out to 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt.

One taste and this vinegar barbecue sauce transported me back in time more than 20 years to my family’s Saturday night barbecues! This sauce reminds me of my granddad, who always shunned the store-bought variety of barbecue sauce and made his own. Throughout the year, he usually had at least three vegetable gardens and was always canning or pickling. He had a taste that often veered towards things with a vinegar base and most of the foods he cooked were definitely memorable.

And, thanks to this recipe, I’m able to revisit some of my fondest childhood memories. And believe me, my granddad would absolutely love this sauce as well! In honor of granddad, I paired the sauce with chicken breasts slow-cooked all night in a crock pot. De-lic-ious!

This is a great sauce if you want quick and easy. I mopped it over ribs during the last few minutes of grilling and put a bit on the bottom of the plate when serving. It’s really tangy, bright, and acidic—the only adjustment I’d make is to maybe throw in some cayenne or ancho chili powder for some heat.

We used Cholula hot sauce as it was in the fridge and ended up with just under 3 cups after simmering the sauce for a few minutes.

The first thing to know about me and this recipe is that barbecue sauces are my “currency” and this, while not a C note, ranks up there with the big spenders. The finished product is the perfect jumping-off point for any modification or extra pizazz you might want to add to a really, really good mopping sauce. For a vinegar-based sauce, it has a perfect ratio of tart to smooth with the ketchup balancing out any of the mentioned “puckers” you might encounter!

This is a straight-forward easy peasy recipe and the hardest part is to resist tasting every time you stir it—yes, it is that good. I used Franks Hot Sauce (original version) for this sauce and I think you could get some really great results changing out brands and intensities since this is a basic generic recipe that depends on so few ingredients to give it its kick.

I will add this to my collections of sauce recipes and it will be up near the top of the list. It is a brilliant canvas upon which to paint whatever embellishments you wish—additions or substitutions will work here! I plan to use this on ribs, brisket, and tonight on a plain ole grass-fed beef burger. And I think I might add some of this to some homemade mayo for a special sauce for the bun! Have fun and play with your food!

This recipe is so easy to put together yet delivers a clean, straightforward vinegar barbecue sauce. The ingredients needed are everyday pantry items, but obviously the key ingredients are the vinegars and ketchup. As the ketchup is so dominant in the flavor, it is important to choose one that you like. This is a good base recipe for experimenting with other flavors. Beyond fatty meat, this sauce is versatile and can be used to provide a sour kick to eggs, chicken, and other dishes that could benefit from an extra boost in flavor.

I used Sriracha for the hot sauce. It paired well with pork. It makes 3 cups and I used it on sausage and chicken as well.

If more people knew how easy it was to whip up their own homemade barbecue sauce, we would put sauce companies out of business. This barbecue sauce took less than 20 minutes from start to finish using ingredients most folks would find in their pantry or refrigerator. It’s a sauce meant to be drizzled rather than thickly slopped on pulled pork, ribs, or your favorite grilled meat. If you have an aversion to vinegar skip this sauce but if you love a nice tang and a touch of heat to your sauce get ready to drizzle!

I used Frank’s Red Hot Sauce (always). I served this using the Slow Cooker Pulled Pork recipe by Nick Evans from this website and the combination was perfection.




About David Leite

I count myself lucky to have received three James Beard Awards for my writing as well as for Leite’s Culinaria. My work has also appeared in The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Yankee, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and more.


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Recipe Rating





10 Comments

  1. 2 stars
    The balance of ingredients is not pleasant. Tastes like vinegar and ketchup. I should have noticed the little “disclaimer” in the directions when it basically says it’s too bitter to taste without meat. A good sauce is good regardless. I was disappointed with this, and like one of the other commentators above, I had to add more of every other ingredient to make it less harsh.

    1. Beau, I’m terribly sorry you didn’t find the sauce to your liking. Yes, the testers’ note says it’s acidic. But you tasted bitter. Hmmm. I’m going to put this back into testing, and see if we can recreate your issue. Again, so sorry.

  2. 5 stars
    This is a great Carolina-style vinegar barbecue sauce. It’s extra tangy and extremely quick to throw together with just basic pantry ingredients. For a 10-minute recipe, this sauce packs some flavor punch.

    I actually threw my sauce straight into the slow cooker with a pork shoulder and let it go overnight and it resulted in magic! The vinegar taste was a bit too strong for my household so in the end, I wound up adding an additional 1/2 cup ketchup and 1/2 cup dark brown sugar and another dash of Worcestershire. I found that in addition to sweetening it up, the sauce tasted more balanced overall.

    1. Darci, sounds excellent. I think because you used it in a slow cooker, the vinegar became more pronounced. You did the exact right thing by balancing it with the other ingredients.

  3. In the Carolinas, there is a huge difference between the slaw that is put on or served alongside pork. Barbeque slaw isn’t dairy based, using vinegar instead. Think German immigrants and their love of pork (SC Germans with their mustard based sauce is another thing altogether). Carolinians don’t put coleslaw on their sandwiches. We won’t even begin the whole Piedmont vs. Eastern ketchup kerfuffle.

    Here’s smoke in your eye…

    1. I beg to differ. South Carolina has three distinct types of BBQ sauce – sweet, mustard, and vinegar. Vinegar based sauces are used primarily in the low country. My family has lived there for over 200 years. We on the coast definitely like to top our BBQ sandwiches with a mayo based slaw to cut the vinegar in the sauce we use.

      1. Hi Angela, I live in the low country as well and adore a good mustard BBQ sauce. And also this mustard based slaw when i have a sweet sauce https://leitesculinaria.com/104436/recipes-south-carolina-slaw.html