Kansas City BBQ Sauce
On July 30, 2019 (Updated May 10, 2024)
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Kansas City BBQ sauce is the perfect balance of sweet and tangy. It’s rich from the molasses, bright from the acidic tomatoes and vinegar, and has just the right amount of heat from the chili powder. It’s a classic, ketchup-based BBQ sauce that is a must-have for chicken, ribs, and more!
Homemade BBQ Sauce
Making your own homemade BBQ sauce is something I recommend trying at least once. Though, once you make some from scratch, you’ll likely find yourself making your own sauce over and over again. I personally love making food that has all natural ingredients without anything added (especially all those ingredients I can’t pronounce!), and this BBQ sauce is full of only the good stuff.
This sauce is made from a tomato and molasses base. I add in some brown sugar and apple cider vinegar for a sweet and tangy zip, and then infuse it with 8 spices to give it a well-rounded flavor with a tiny kick of heat at the end. It’s my go-to BBQ sauce when I need that perfect, quintessential sauce. It’s so good, I usually have a jar of it in my fridge at all times.
This sauce is great to make and eat the same day, but if you’ve got the time to let it sit, it is even better after letting it rest for 24 hours. That extra day in the refrigerator gives all of the ingredients time to hang out and get comfortable with each other, resulting in a smoother and more delicious sauce. If you end up with any leftovers, it lasts great in the refrigerator. Make sure you keep it in an airtight container (I usually store my sauces in a simple wide mouth mason jar), and it should last you at least two weeks.
What is Kansas City BBQ Sauce?
I was fortunate enough to visit Kansas City in 2017 for my second Guinness World Record and eat at the best restaurants around. It was pretty darn amazing. While there, I packed my days with BBQ for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Kansas is famous for their burnt ends, and the best complement for tender, smoked beef is a great sauce.
Kansas city BBQ sauce has got it’s own flare and flavor. Most Kansas City style sauces are tomato based, almost all have molasses, and from the ones that I tasted, they all give you a little kick of heat at the end from chili powder, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, or a combination of all three. This homemade version hits all of those major flavor components with my own Hey Grill Hey twist.
How to Make BBQ Sauce
Making your own BBQ sauce at home is inexpensive, easy, and takes less than 30 minutes. Follow along with these 3 simple steps, and you will soon see how it’s totally worth it to make your own sauce at home.
- Boil the ingredients. Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Use a whisk to combine and mix the ingredients while it comes to a boil.
- Simmer the sauce. Once your sauce is boiling, reduce the heat to low and allow it to simmer for 20 minutes. The sauce should thicken nicely, and your house will be filled with the sweet aroma of delicious BBQ sauce.
- Cool and refrigerate. Remove the sauce from the heat and allow it to cool completely. You can use it immediately, but I recommend transferring it to a container with a lid and refrigerating it for 24 hours for the best flavor.
This sauce keeps well, and you can store it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks (assuming it lasts that long!). I highly recommend trying this on my Smoked Chicken recipe. The smoked chicken is moist, juicy, and it is packed with flavor when cooked with this tasty sauce. This sauce is also great to have on hand for dipping. We love to slather it on grilled and smoked meats, and use it as a dip for grilled veggies.
Best BBQ Sauce Recipes
I’m a firm believe that homemade BBQ sauce is the perfect way to finish your hard-earned, long-smoked meat. Check out these recipes below for more amazing BBQ sauce recipes:
Honey BBQ Sauce
Carolina Vinegar BBQ Sauce
Coffee BBQ Sauce
BBQ Sauce Recipe
Kansas City BBQ Sauce
Ingredients
- 14 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup ketchup
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- ½ cup molasses
- 1 Tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 Tablespoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ½ teaspoon ground mustard
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Whisk to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low to simmer.
- Simmer for 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool completely before transferring to an air tight container.
- This sauce can be used immediately, but I recommend refrigerating overnight for the best flavor. This sauce will last 2 weeks in the refrigerator if sealed tightly in an air tight container.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
**This post was originally published January 2018. It has since been updated with more information and helpful tips. The recipe remains the same.
I swear this is the best sauce ever concocted. These ingredients were made to go with each other. Angels came down from heaven and blessed this person to create this masterpiece and I still can’t believe it was shared with us to make. Tears came to my eyes. Tangy at first and then a little bit of heat. Smooth and comforting, this sauce wants to marry Meat, they are the cutest couple.
Hey Grill- this is some good good sauce!! We used it with pulled pork- delicious! Thx for the recipe- it’s a keeper.
Can anyone tell me if this sauce pairs well with beef?
It does! This is what I bottle as Everything Sauce.
I’ve been making this recipe for years except that I sauté minced Vidalia onion and bell pepper in a little veg oil then add all of the other ingredients.
I made this sauce as a precursor to traveling to KC for a work trip. Smoked a brisket and cut up most of the point to make burnt ends. They were just phenomenal! Went to KC, tried burnt ends at 4 different places known in KC for great bbq. In all reality, this sauce was just as good if not better than all of them. Combined with the fact I can make a better brisket than I think any joint in KC (can’t quite beat Franklin’s or Terry Black’s in Austin quite yet but I’m working on it), this is yet another food where my family prefers my home cooking to about anywhere we can go. Thanks for a great recipe and as a side note, the smoked prime rib recipe is also pretty close to perfection!
One of the best BBQ Sauces I have ever tasted. Great Recipe and it’s so true to let this sit a day or two in the fridge because it does make a difference in taste. We’ll time to make some more thank you so much for sharing this Recipe.
This is a great sauce that is truly genuine KC sweet, thanks! By the way Susie , do you have a recipe for guava BBQ sauce?? I tried bottled and it was awesome, but hard to find in my city.
A quality sauce transporting me to downtown Kansas City. A sincere thanks for this prescious gem that will be kept in my vault of family recipes from here on out.
What size can of ketchup is used in the recipe?
Any size that’s at least 1 cup!
I never leave comments, but I felt the need to say that I LOVE this bbq sauce. It’s perfect. We have made it about a dozen times in the past year and I will never be able to use bottled bbq sauce ever again. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe, it’s one of my absolute favorites! We love putting it on wings and pulled chicken sandwiches.