Amp Up The Flavor Of Bottled BBQ Sauce With One Tangy Condiment

What do chicken wings, baby back ribs, and a burger all have in common? They all taste a million times better when they're slathered in a thick coating of barbecue sauce. This timeless condiment can be used on an array of meat-based dishes (and if you free your mind up a little, you may even consider adding it to your spaghetti). But its flavor tends to be one-note. Even if your favorite store-bought barbecue sauce has the perfect degree of sweetness, stemming from ingredients like brown sugar, honey, and molasses, as well as a little bit of smoke flavor, your sauce is likely missing that intense bite that could make it oh-so-flavorful. We have the answer: add mustard. 

The next time you're looking to spruce up a store-bought sauce or upgrade your homemade barbecue sauce recipe, consider reaching for a bottle of yellow mustard. While it might seem like an oddball addition, just remember that mustard contains a healthy dose of vinegar, which will boost any of the acidity already present in the barbecue sauce. Moreover, yellow mustard also has that delightfully zingy back-of-the-mouth heat, which will help quell any excess sugariness in the sauce.

This recipe is really as easy as mixing together barbecue sauce and mustard for an easy upgrade, in whatever quantities suit your palate; perhaps start with 2 parts barbecue to 1 part mustard. However, there are a couple of considerations you'll need to make when adding mustard to your barbecue sauce. First, scan the barbecue sauce label to see if the sauce contains mustard already (as some do). If you add extra mustard on top of this, you may risk shifting the balance of the sauce to something that's just a little bit too piquant. Granted, you'll want to make sure you're using yellow mustard — which is the one of the more mild types of mustard. Whole grain brown mustard, in comparison, would impart an awkward texture to this sauce, while dried mustard powder would be too strong — and you wouldn't get that flavorful, acidic hit that your sauce yearns for. 

If you're making your own sauce from scratch, try adding in a little mustard at a time, stirring, and giving it a taste. This mix-up barbecue mustard sauce is an excellent complement to grilled pork, but you could also add it to your other smoked favorites as well, and also just have some on the table for dipping.