If you miss being able to grab barbecue sauce off the grocery store shelf, try this easy-peasy homemade sauce with a fraction of the sodium.
Yes, that is pork. Can you guess what recipe is coming soon to the blog?
Barbecue sauce is one of those things that we didn’t eat a whole lot of before Joe’s big diet change, but has become something of a staple in our kitchen as we have sought out ways to bring strong flavors without added sodium. I have tried several different methods, and this barbecue sauce is our favorite – hands down. By the way, Neely’s BBQ Sauce is the base for this recipe, with several tweaks to keep it low sodium. It is easy, I can make it with ingredients that I usually have on hand, and will keep in the fridge so I can make it ahead and use it later. Try it the next time you are looking for a way to add a kick to your meal.
We haven’t grilled too much lately, in spite of it being summer. Unfortunately, we are having terrible fires across Montana, and I live in a valley that tends to trap a lot of smoke. We have been battling smoke from Canada and the Pacific Northwest since we returned from South Korea a little over a month ago. When the air quality is consistently in the “Unhealthy” to “Very Unhealthy” range, we really try to minimize our time outdoors (including time in front of the grill). But we will get through it and in the meantime have been able to use this barbecue sauce on other meat that we cook indoors, like the pulled pork pictured above.
In any case, this weekend I am testing some sweets and hope to come out the other side with some photos of some ginger lemon cookies and a cinnamon almond bubble bread. There are many other ideas up my sleeve, but if there are any recipes that you would like to see on the blog, let me know in the comments. I am always open to hearing about your ideas or food that you’d like to see made without a ton of salt. I am no magician, but I will see what I can do. 🙂
PrintLow Sodium Barbecue Sauce
NUTRITIONAL SUMMARY:
62.6 mg sodium per serving
173.5 mg potassium per serving
13.15 mg phosphorus per serving
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
Ingredients
- 8 oz no salt added tomato sauce
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
- 4 Tbsp brown sugar (packed)
- 2.5 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp ground mustard
- 1.5 tsp lemon juice
- 1.5 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- ½ cup water
Instructions
- Whisk together all ingredients in a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat until the sauce simmers. Reduce heat to low and let simmer, uncovered, for about 1 hour or until the sauce has been reduced by half (down to about 1.5 cups).
Notes
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION – Yield: 6 servings, about 4 tablespoons each. 13.15 mg phosphorus per serving.
I make this sauce all the time now. It is delicious! We had company for dinner the other night. I had not made enough of this sauce for everyone to have it, so I put out a bottle of traditional barbecue sauce for folks who did not have to eat a low sodium diet. At the end of the meal, one of the guests had seconds and tried the low sodium sauce. He liked it much better than the traditional one!
★★★★★
Thanks for the great feedback! Another one of our favorite recipes for a crowd is the recipe for Slow Cooked Pork Burrito Bowls (https://www.sodiumoptional.com/burrito-bowls/). We love it for a group because people who aren’t watching their sodium can use tortillas, add cheese, salsa, etc. It makes it very versatile for a big group.
I can’t wait to try this! How long will this keep in the refrigerator? I’m trying to see if I need to half the recipe for just one person
That is an excellent question. I’ve not kept it for more than a few days before using it so I am not sure. Good luck and sorry that I don’t have a more definitive answer!
I made the full recipe and with the vinegar I don’t think it will spoil very quickly. I know mine won’t last long enough for it to spoil and I’m the only one eating it. I cooked mine down to one cup so it would be thicker. Thanks to Kathy I get to eat pork and chicken BBQ again and all I want. Now I have to go to my meat suppliers (Kroger and Sams) and see if they will sell chicken that isn’t pumped full of sodium. Can’t wait to try more of her recipes. I gave it 5 stars but it deserves 10.
★★★★★
Thanks for the kind words. Glad you like it so much!
I’ve always found the lowest sodium chicken at Costco, but it’s been hit and miss with their chicken supply since Covid 19 hit. I haven’t been there in the past couple of weeks However, so may be better now.
I make a double recipe and freeze it in snack size zip bags.
When I’m ready to use it, I just that then snip a corner off the bag and squeeze the sauce into a bowl.
It freezes great!
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This sauce is awesome! I make it regularly cause it goes with everything and it keeps in the fridge for about a month. I keep it in a jar and use a clean spoon to only scoop out what I need. So far, we use it up before we’ve noticed any degradation or spoilage.
As a side note, we went on vacation and stayed at a vacation rental with a kitchen/pantry that was stocked with only the basics.
I wanted to make this sauce, but didn’t want to buy a lot of extraneous pantry items while on vacation.
I ended up just buying the no-salt tomato sauce and whittled down your recipe to the following:
To the 16oz can of tomato sauce, I just added 1/2 c brown sugar, 2 tbsp yellow mustard and 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar.
It had a little less depth than your recipe above, but it was delicious nonetheless.
Thank you for giving me such a delicious basis to work from.
★★★★★
So glad that you like it!
YUMM Made this to season navy beans cooked in an instant pot….Excellent low sodium pork and beans to go with steak from the grill and baked potato. I plan to use the rest for pulled chicken.
Thanks for this site.!!
★★★★★
Yum! I will have to make some pork and beans with this sauce one of these days. I haven’t tried it yet. What a great use!
How important is the Worcestershire sauce? My store was out.
Hi Elizabeth. I haven’t tested it without the Worcestershire sauce sauce, so I can’t say for certain. But if I were in your shoes, I would probably try it without to see how it works. Barbecue sauce tends to be pretty forgiving, so I am guessing that it would work okay without the w. sauce. Good luck!
I love this sauce recipe I have, from the beginning, omitted the Worcestershire sauce and in its place I use liquid smoke. Liquid smoke has no sodium. I think it gives the bbq sauce that smoke flavor it needs. Thanks for a wonderful recipe.
So glad you like it! I like liquid smoke too. Unfortunately my husband isn’t crazy about it, so I usually skip it. I’ve thought about making another barbecue sauce recipe that is deeper and smokier (molasses and liquid smoke, maybe), but I have yet to execute it.
Not the easiest BBQ sauce I’ve ever made, but it was soooo good!!! Worth the time I spent ! Thank you!!!
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I live in a small town, and don’t have access to low-sodium complete options such as barbeque sauce. I love your website as I am able to at least find the ingredients in a low sodium form. This is delicious and I have made it twice!
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I grew up in a very small town, and even now live in a relatively small town. I can relate to limited access, and I try to be mindful of that when I build recipes. So glad that you liked this!
I made your low sodium BBQ sauce but it ended up way too watery. What did I do or not do? Thank you
I’m not sure exactly how you did it so I can’t say for certain. Mine starts off watery, but I cook it with the lid off for at least an hour until a lot of the water cooks off. It ends up being a bit thinner than some store bought sauces, but is not watery.
HOW DOES IT COME OUT WITH SO MUCH SODIUM IN THE ANALYSIS, WITH NO SALT ADDED AT ALL???
About 70 mg of sodium comes from the no salt added tomato sauce, and the rest comes from the Worcestershire sauce.
Delicious after simmering! Thanks again Kathy!
★★★★★
I was thinking of trying smoked paprika instead of the Worcestershire sauce. Any thoughts on how that might work out?
I am not sure how it would work. My MIL sometimes adds a splash of liquid smoke when she makes it, and that is pretty good. So perhaps the smoked paprika would be good if you prefer a smokier barbecue sauce. Since I haven’t tried it, I can’t be sure.
Life saving recipe! I am fairly new to a very sodium restricted (1000mgs per day), high protein and vegan diet. This BBQ sauce has opened up a whole new world for me! I made bbq chiken’ pizza topped with fresh arugula and it was so delicious. I doubled the brown sugar and added cayenne per my taste but it was delicious w/o. I can’t wait to try your other sauce recipes, veganized of course. Mahalo nui!
★★★★★
I have been making this for about a ywar now ever my hubs had to go low sodium for medical reasons. I use low sodium Worcestershire sauce so even better on sodium. Have also added a dash of liquid smoke to deepen the flavor. It has been a game changer for us and being able to eat bbq. And discovered that if it is t thickening quite enough just add a bit of corn starch and whisk it thoroughly.
Excellent recipe! I made a mistake when writing it down, though. Instead of tomato sauce, I used a small can of tomato paste. Also left out the lemon juice since I didn’t have any. It required only about 20 minutes of cooking to get it thick as we like it. I like the intense vinegary flavor of it. Next time I’ll try doing it the “right” way to see if I like it even better. Thanks!!
★★★★★
Is the amount of Apple Cider Vinegar in the recipe correct? You have 8 oz tomatoe sauce and 1/2cup vinegar whereas the original recipe had 16oz of ketchup and 1/2 cup vinegar. I’m making right now but tastes pretty vinegary
Yes, that amount is correct. It is higher because I deconstructed a homemade ketchup recipe and combined it with the BBQ sauce recipe. Homemade ketchup starts with tomato sauce and vinegar, so that added to the vinegar in the original BBQ sauce recipe.
The sauce will definitely taste better as it simmers, so if you are tasting it early, give it some time.