Foods This homemade sugar-free barbecue sauce is the perfect balance of tang, spice, and sweet. It’s the type of signature sauce that screams ‘summertime’ and ‘grilling’.
Summer is the perfect excuse for grilling. I just love the taste of a good barbecue sauce dripping off of hot ribs, burgers, or chicken. I even like slathering barbecue sauce on my bacon wrapped meatloaf. However, I don’t always like the store-bought version of barbecue sauce. Oftentimes, they are full of sugar which hides the tang of vinegar, the spices, and the sweetness of the tomato sauce.
Why worry about buying sugar-heavy barbecue sauces when you can make your own sugar-free barbecue sauce? A mix here, a dash there, and you have a delicious barbecue sauce that can rival anything in the stores.
It’s so easy! Seriously. I whipped up a batch of this sugar-free barbecue sauce tonight with my toddler hanging on my leg, crawling around my feet, and trying to help; even with all that, it still only took about 5 minutes to whip up.
Looking for more gluten-free resources? This Everything Gluten Free page is a library of everything gluten free we’ve worked on.
Sugar-Free Barbecue Sauce
Ingredients
- 15 ounces tomato sauce
- 6 ounces tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 4 teaspoons yellow mustard
- 2 tablespoons erythritol
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon molasses optional; will add a small amount of sugar
- 1 teaspoon liquid smoke optional but highly recommended!
Instructions
- In a large sauce pan, combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly.
- Heat on low until sauce is bubbling.
- Continue stirring to avoid burning. Simmer about 15 minutes.
- Use immediately or allow sauce to cool and place into storage containers to store (in the refrigerator) for later.
- *The molasses and liquid smoke are not necessary, but I do prefer the added flavor that both add to the sauce.
What about you? What is your favorite food to eat with barbecue sauce?
More Summer Food Recipes:
- Healthy Grilled Chicken Drumsticks
- Grain-Free Graham Crackers Recipe
- Sugar-Free Orange Creamsicle Ice Cream
- Kid-Friendly Fruit Kabobs
- Strawberry Coconut Popsicles
Where do you find erythritol and what is that??
Erythritol is a sugar alcohol that does not have an impact on your blood sugar. It is easily found in most health food stores; but if there are none around, Amazon has a good selection.
I specifically made this sauce to be sugar-free. However, if you are not opposed to sugar in your diet, you could try adding regular sugar or another tablespoon of molasses to the sauce (or more, depending on your taste preference).
Please note – Erythritol is not as sweet as sugar, so I would only use 1Tbsp of sugar and taste it to gauge the sweetness.
If you’re interested, here’s a link to a great post that Trisha put together on sugar substitutes that she uses.
https://www.intoxicatedonlife.com/grain-free-goodies-resources/
I hope this helps. If not, let me know! 🙂
Mary
The name of this recipe is a bit misleading. For those of us looking for sugar-free, this is NOT sugar-free. Molasses is sugar. Honey is sugar. Succanot is sugar. It baffles me how people think that they can add these kind of ingredients and still call it sugar-free. Just one of my pet peeves.
The molasses is an optional ingredient (as the recipe states). Simply leave that ingredient out if you’d like a 100% no sugar-added recipe.
If baffles me how people can’t read.
This was unfortunately a BIG fail. My sauce did not turn out AT ALL like the one in the picture! It was just pure tomato. And it was thick from the tomato paste. No way did it taste like bbq or look like bbq. Consistency and taste were both off. Which is sad. Because I really wanted it to have worked.
🙁
Sorry you didn’t enjoy Mary’s recipe. I made this back in the fall and my family really enjoyed it on some ribs!
Could I use stevia instead of erythritol?
You could try, but I’m not sure how it would turn out as I’ve not tried that myself.
Is the mustard used in the recipe dry or wet (like used on hot dogs)?
I used wet, prepared mustard.
Making this right now to go on ribs. I really like it. I didn’t have molasses or liquid smoke. However, I added a chipotle chili and some of the sauce. That gave it a nice spicy, smokey flavor. Thanks for sharing! I have been looking at sugar free sauces online and they cost upwards of $10 a bottle.
That sounds like a VERY tasty twist on this recipe 🙂