For The Best Vegan BBQ, Choose The Highest-Quality Sauce

Hosting a vegan barbecue — or even dedicating a portion of your barbecue offerings to meatless alternatives — proves that there are many options for a fulfilling meat-free feast. Whereas meat has its own distinct flavor which is accentuated by the barbecue process, many meat-alternative food items need a little extra TLC when it comes to preparation. If you want to create the best vegan barbecue possible, the sauce is the boss. The wide variety of plant-based foods that are perfect for grilling kabobs means that there are plenty of ways to sauce and season your foods to vegan barbecue perfection.

The advantage of a vegan barbecue is the ultimate customization of the flavors of your food. While meat offerings will produce juices and a juicy texture, you get to give your vegetables and plant-based meat alternatives all the taste and texture you could ever want. This means that your barbecue sauce must be top-notch, as the flavor depends on it. With more porous vegetables like cauliflower steaks, for example, the flavors of your sauce will easily permeate your food and infuse it through the marinating process. Similarly, if you replace meat with barbecued beets, you'll be treated to a combination of sweetness and heat that can't be beat.

In addition to pre-seasoning and marinating your vegan food items before grilling, it's also a good idea to keep a container of sauce on hand that you can baste or brush on for that extra kick of flavor. With such a wide range of different store-bought barbecue sauce offerings available, you can easily find one that will fit your preferences — or even a small handful to vary the flavors between dishes. If you prefer to make your own, there are plenty of recipes using minimal ingredients (like this easy 3-ingredient BBQ sauce) as well as a variety of options to elevate your homemade barbecue sauce.

To find the highest quality sauce, look for one that's lower in preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup. From there, you can think about different flavor combinations – such as an extra-smoky sauce to add more of that authentic grilled flavor. Consider trying a barbecue sauce with a little extra sweetness to replicate the flavors of pulled pork in a jackfruit BBQ sandwich. For dishes where you want a little extra kick of spice (like this BBQ tofu recipe), add hot sauce or chiles to your homemade or store-bought sauce. You can even try something extra fun like a pineapple teriyaki sauce to add a balance of acidity and sweetness. There's no limit to the different ways you can experiment with saucing up your vegan barbecue offerings to find flavors to please everyone.