Fred's Red Barbecue Sauce

1½ cups ketchup
1 small can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
½ cup water
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon bottled minced ginger
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon dried oregano leaves
½ teaspoon dried basil leaves
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper, see Cook's note
¼ teaspoon allspice

Place all of the ingredients in a small saucepan and stir to mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat, about 3 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 more minutes (or up to 30 minutes), stirring occasionally, to blend the flavors. Remove the sauce from the heat and measure out the portion you need for grilling. The remaining sauce will keep refrigerated in an air-tight container for up to 1 month.

* Notes

This amount of crushed red pepper gives the sauce the slightest zing. Omit the pepper for a mild sauce or increase the amount if, like Fred, you prefer a tongue lashing.

Alicia likes to store the sauce in an empty ketchup bottle so she can squirt out just the amount she needs

Beverly says: One of my brother-in-law Fred Bisel’s favorite sports is to see how much Tabasco sauce he can stand in a single sitting. So when he started bragging about his barbecue sauce, I’m going, “Yeah, yeah, it’s going to turn my ears into smokestacks and I won’t be able to eat again for a week, right?”

This banter continued as he stoked up his grill and started to work. A couple of hours later we sat down to a platter of barbecued chicken. I clutched a fork in one hand and a glass of ice water in the other. And boy, oh boy!

Truly it was the best barbecued chicken I’d ever eaten – slightly sweet with an undercurrent of complex spices and the faintest bit of burn in the back of your throat. Turns out, Fred’s Red Sauce is equally good for grilling chicken, pork and ribs.

So, here’s a slightly adapted version of my now-favorite barbecue sauce along with my apologies to Fred for the jokes, the barbs, the jabs and the doubts. Wonder what I need to do to make it up to him?

Approximate Values Per Tablespoon: 13 calories (2% from fat), .04 g fat (0 g saturated), 0 mg cholesterol, 0 g protein, 3 g carbohydrates, 0 g dietary fiber, 121 mg sodium

Print this recipe:

• Print Full-Page Recipe with Color Image
• Print Full-Page Recipe without Image (black & white)
• Print Compact Recipe (without image or backstory or nutrition information)
• Print with Large Type (without image or backstory or nutrition information)