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Making your own barbecue sauce can be as simple as five ingredients and ten minutes!
Since we grocery shop only once per month, fridge space is at a premium. One way that we save space is by not having a bunch of open bottles of condiments in the refrigerator.
Thanks to this simple and quick recipe, barbecue sauce is one thing that we can make as we need it.
Any foodies in the audience will probably cringe at the fact that I am calling this “barbecue sauce”, because one normally thinks of barbecue sauces as being slow cooked to perfection.
Not so with this one.
It’s a quick and easy recipe (which is why I am including it on my time-saving blog!). 🙂

Five pantry ingredients and minimal simmering time is all it takes to whip together this awesome barbecue sauce. In addition to saving space in my fridge, I use this recipe all the time because I haven’t been able to find a store-bought BBQ sauce that fits in my diet. Since I have a favorite store-bought ketchup that does fit all of my diet requirements, I am able to make this sauce lickety split.
One of my most frequent uses for this sauce is to combine it with my favorite gluten free meatballs and make BBQ meatball subs.
This recipe is the perfect amount of sauce for about half of the meatballs yielded from my meatball recipe. If you want to coat all 70-75 meatballs in sauce, you will want to double this recipe using the plug-in below.
I’m also whipping up a batch of this sauce later in the week to make copycat Red Robin BBQ chicken wraps.

This barbecue sauce is definitely on the sweeter side. But even if that’s not typically your thing, you might want to give this sauce a try.
It really is delicious! (I’m never going to be the next Food Network Star. I have a very limited vocabulary of food adjectives in which “delicious” is my go-to.)
Due to the sugar content, when actually cooking with this sauce (stovetop, crockpot, barbecue) you will want to watch closely to make sure it doesn’t burn.
If you give this recipe a try, please make sure to come back and let me know how you liked it!

Servings | 1/4 cup servings |
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 3/4 tsp liquid smoke
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
Ingredients
| ![]() |
- Combine all ingredients in small saucepan and bring to boil over medium-high heat.
- Reduce heat to low and simmer for at least 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.