This 1 ingredient tip instantly makes the barbecue sauce in the bottle

I love enough barbecue for having devoted years of my career to cooking through styles and to study regional variations that make the American tradition so rich. I will gladly spend an entire weekend to take care of a smoker, to coax a pork shoulder to perfect tenderness and whisk my own sauce from zero. And I like it enough to know that no style of unique sauce has the title of “real” barbecue – whether it is sharp sauces of North Carolina vinegar, gold from South Carolina Moutard, Alabama White or Kansas City Rich Kansas City, everyone has a place just at the table.

But even as a grill and lover of stands, there are times when I simply do not have the luxury of making sauce from zero. A chicken barbecue during the week, an impromptu rib session or a last-minute backyard burger spread calls for speed. It was then that I reached a bottle of the shelf of the grocery store. And while we, at Serious Eats, have tested and approved several good bottled sauces, there is a universal truth: most of the barbecue sauces bought in store are leaning towards the sweetest city of Kansas.

The Kansas City sauce is famous for tomato, sweet with brown sugar or molasses, and thick enough to hang on the ribs or the chest. Well done, it balances Tang, Spice and just the good amount of wealth. However, in the bottle form, it often tends to be too sweet, too thick and unfortunately one -dimensional. Brush it on a smoked chicken thigh and instead of improving meat, it can drown it.

The solution, you can be happy to hear, is not only to do all the barbecue from zero – you can and should improve bottled stuff. Everything you need is vinegar.

Why vinegar works

Grilled and smoked meats are intrinsically rich and oily. The pork shoulder, the chest and the ribs rest on the fats and collagen to stay damp during long and slow cooking, but this same richness can coat the flavors of palaces and mute. The vinegar contrasts through this fat. It clears up, balances and brings your taste buds back to life so that you really taste smoke, friction of spices and meat itself.

Most bottle sauces lack sufficient acidity to perform this task. But add a spoonful (or more) of vinegar to a blocked sauce repairs it. It balances the flavor, while loosening the syrupy texture of the sauce so that it brushes and clings slightly to meat, instead of gloopting like a sweets.

How to improve barbecue sauce purchased in stores

My basic ratio is simple: for each cup of barbecue sauce in bottle, start by whipping a single teaspoon of vinegar. A teaspoon may seem nothing, but remember that vinegar is a powerful ingredient, and you can always add more, but you cannot remove it. Then taste, adjust and add more if you want an additional flavor. The exact amount will depend on the sweetness of your particular brand, but according to my experience, the sauce generally needs more vinegar than you expect, because once it strikes smoked and fatty meat, this sharpness softens and is wrong.

Also make sure you use the best vinegar for work. Stay with something neutral and not too assertive, such as apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar or ordinary distilled white vinegar. Avoid stronger and more complex options such as balsamic vinegar or sherry, which can compete with the flavor of the sauce.

Advice to personalize the flavor more

The addition of vinegar only will transform the most sweet bottle sauces, but your spice cabinet can go even further. A pinch of cayenne or chili powder adds heat. A pinch of smoked paprika adds a hint of barbecue flavor. A spoonful of mustard or Worcestershire deepens complexity. None of this is required, but everything is welcome.

The key is that you don’t need to start from scratch. You do not prepare a sauce as much as to improve one. The vinegar rebalances which is already there, transforming a sauce into a bottle too sweet into a shiny, tangy and dynamic sauce. With this one upgrade, the barbecue sauce bought in store goes from the passable backup to something that you will be really delighted to use.