Stir ketchup, honey, vinegar, and molasses together in a saucepan over medium heat until smooth; add liquid smoke, salt, black pepper, paprika, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper. Stir the seasonings into the ketchup mixture, reduce heat to low, and simmer until thickened, about 20 minutes.

Ketchup: This is the base ingredient! It adds body, flavor, and acidity from the tomatoes. Apple cider vinegar: Adds that classic tangy flavor profile. Dark brown sugar and molasses: Both add sweetness, color, and consistency.

Regional variations might also contain hot chilli pepper, soy sauce, cumin or garlic and Worcestershire sauce. Originally used to baste meat during cooking, barbecue sauce is also now more commonly served as a condiment similar to ketchup and brown sauce.

Kansas City Style BBQ Kansas City style BBQ offers a smorgasbord of slow-smoked meats rubbed down in a sweet seasoning and slathered in a thick, sugary sauce. Brown sugar is the base ingredient of Kansas City rub (traditional recipes call for a two-to-one ratio of brown sugar to paprika).

It's believed that the very first primitive barbeque sauce was invented in a Dominican missionary where the cooks used lime juice and pepper to flavor meat for the barbeque. Eventually, this technique become popular with others and made its way around the world.

Tomato-Based Sauces The tomato-based sauce is the most common type of BBQ sauce used nowadays. Typically, the tomato part comes from ketchup, though some sauces use other tomatoey condiments like tomato paste, salsa, etc.

barbecue, an outdoor meal, usually a form of social entertainment, at which meats, fish, or fowl, along with vegetables, are roasted over a wood or charcoal fire. The term also denotes the grill or stone-lined pit for cooking such a meal, or the food itself, particularly the strips of meat.

The first sauce they made was very simple. In 1698, a Dominican missionary named Père Labat visited the French West Indies and witnessed cooks using lime juice and hot peppers to season barbecued meat. This sauce probably had its roots in Africa where cooks traditionally used both lemon and lime juice.

The Origin of 'Barbecue' The history of the word barbecue goes back to the indigenous people of North and South America, the Spanish word barbacoa was used by the Taínos who inhabited Hispaniola, Jamaica and Cuba. Barbacoa was used to describe the slow cooking of meat over an open flame.

BBQ is the written abbreviation for barbecue. Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers.

BBQ is an abbreviation of the word “barbecue.” Depending on what part of the world you're in, you might also see that BBQ stands for “barbeque,” “barb-cue,” or “bar-b-que.”

Barbecue sauce (also abbreviated as BBQ sauce) is a sauce used as a marinade, basting, condiment, or topping for meat cooked in the barbecue cooking style, including pork or beef ribs and chicken. It is a ubiquitous condiment in the Southern United States and is used on many other foods as well.

Sajid Dhanani is the founder at Barbeque Nation Hospitality .

The Origin of 'Barbecue' The history of the word barbecue goes back to the indigenous people of North and South America, the Spanish word barbacoa was used by the Taínos who inhabited Hispaniola, Jamaica and Cuba. Barbacoa was used to describe the slow cooking of meat over an open flame.

barbecue, an outdoor meal, usually a form of social entertainment, at which meats, fish, or fowl, along with vegetables, are roasted over a wood or charcoal fire. The term also denotes the grill or stone-lined pit for cooking such a meal, or the food itself, particularly the strips of meat.

Preserves More Nutrients When you grill meat, you are preserving more of the vitamins and minerals in the meat. BBQ meat cooked on the grill will retain more riboflavin and thiamine. Thiamine and riboflavin are essential B vitamins that help your body process food into the fuel your body needs.