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From the episode: Barbecued Chicken
In one supermarket, we found more than 30 varieties of barbecue sauce. In the end, we found a few brands that came pretty close to homemade.
Homemade barbecue sauce is a project recipe requiring a laundry list of ingredients and a good chunk of time. No wonder bottled barbecue sauce is so popular. But in just one local supermarket, we found more than 30 varieties! To make sense of all these options, we conducted a blind taste test of seven leading national brands.
We chose tomato-based sauces that were labeled “original” and tasted them as a dipping sauce for homemade chicken fingers. While tasters’ personal preferences varied, we found a few sauces that were universally liked and a few that were universally disliked. Sauces that tasted like tomatoes rather than tasting just plain sweet were the clear favorites. A good balance of smoke and spice was also appreciated; the several sauces judged out of whack in one or both areas received low scores. Texture was another important issue, with tasters objecting to very thin sauces as well as sauces with an overly thick, gloppy consistency, which seemed artificial. Odd colors (one sauce was bright red from the use of food dye) and weird flavors (one sauce reminded us of spicy red hot candies) were not appreciated.
Our conclusion: You don’t have to make your own barbecue sauce, but it should taste—and look—like homemade.
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