Add Sweet Tea To Your BBQ Sauce And Never Look Back

While there may be many barbecue sauce recipes out there (and people who think they make "the best" versions), the two main sauce components, ketchup and vinegar, are found in nearly every one of them. But that doesn't mean you can't get creative with ingredients for your sauce. Looking for a distinctive add-in that goes great with a variety of barbecue sauces and brings both savory and sweet elements? That ingredient is sweet tea, and it may already be in your pantry or fridge. 

Sweet tea is the surprisingly perfect addition to barbecue sauce, and it's an ideal summer pairing to boot. Don't confuse this with teas that are naturally on the sweet side, like an herbal concoction of peach or berry. We're talking about cloying Southern sweet tea — the kind that says, "I'll have some tea with my sugar." Sweet tea plays well with the vinegar and the tomato in the ketchup. Moreover, the tea marries its flavors with the other sauce ingredients to make both the sweet and the savory stand out.

Tea brings a tapestry of flavors ranging from earthy and floral to smoky and sour, and individual types of tea have certain colors or aromas that add depth to the tomato and vinegar in barbecue sauce. That depth can be subtle or more assertive, depending on whether it's been brewed with, say, a chamomile or an Earl Grey. The tea brings complexity to the sauce, and the sugar takes the puckery edge off the vinegar. 

You can use your favorite store-bought sweet tea or prepare your own pitcher with an easy recipe like this Earl Grey sweet tea. As is the case with wine, you'll want to cook with a tea that you would actually drink. We also recommend making an easy three-ingredient barbecue sauce to start rather than going straight for a store-bought barbecue sauce. The main reason for this is that most bottled barbecue sauces have an excessively high sugar content. Sweet tea itself is rife with sugar, so you want to temper and control the sweetness. The ratios of sweet to savory in a simple sauce are an excellent foundation.

When putting together your barbecue sauce, start with ½ cup of sweet tea. Don't forget that you can adjust the sugars and acids, so from there, play with the other main ingredients of ketchup, vinegar, and brown sugar. This makes a sweet, delicious, sticky sauce, but the thickness can be tailored by adding or removing some of the liquid tea. You can also experiment and add some more tang. For example, throw in a dash of onion or garlic powder, or choose your favorite herbs. The woody notes in tea will complement these flavors, as well as the tastes of mustard or Worcestershire, depending on what you're basting. Simple, oven-baked barbecue chicken or a slightly more sophisticated rack of baked and grilled baby back ribs are great places to start.