Eastern North Carolina-Style BBQ Sauce
Updated June 23, 2023
Andrew Sullivan for The New York Times
- Total Time
- 10 minutes, plus 2 months' storage
- Rating
- Comments
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Ingredients
½ cup white vinegar
½ cup cider vinegar
½ tablespoon sugar
½ tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
½ tablespoon Tabasco sauce
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
Nutritional analysis per serving
4 grams carbs; 39 calories; 295 milligrams sodium; 4 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Whisk ingredients together in a bowl. Drizzle on barbecued meat. Covered, sauce will keep about 2 months.
Private Notes
Comments
I grew up in Eastern North Carolina and my family raised and cooked whole pigs over coals. Their bbq sause was one gallon of cider vinegar with enough poured out so that the gallon glass jug could also hold one inch of ground red pepper, one inch of ground white pepper, and one inch of ground black pepper left to sit for flavors to blend for a week or more before use.
This recipe is very close to the authentic NC basic one. For what it's worth, in most of Eastern NC we use brown sugar in the same amount instead of table sugar. I've also never seen Tabasco or other hot sauces used, but every pitmaster has his (or her) own variation on the basic recipe, so.....
A very good recipe for Eastern Carolina sauce. I say Eastern Carolina because, as you head West, the amount of tomato that gets added along the way increases, while the vinegar disappears. So, there are really three kinds of Carolina sauce.
BBQ sauce (a BBQ *accompaniment* more accurately) as God intended. Keep your sugary and thick BBQ sauce, Kansas City and Texas! This accents rather than masks the meat, so if you are adept at smoking a shoulder, this is your ticket to success at the table. Perfect, and reminiscent of the sauce I enjoyed when i first moved to the South. Really simple and really excellent!
I had an old cookbook from the folks at Jack Daniel's, I believe, that had barbecue recipes from coast to coast. Being raised in KC, which of course has world class BBQ, I was fascinated by the stories written to accompany the varied sauces. I also lived in eastern NC in my early 20s. This recipe hits the mark for that region. Good stuff.
Being from Maryland, I get the "it's not true ...", we feel the same about anything made with blue crab. But I love this sauce. The vinegary-ness is right up my alley!