The best BBQ sauce is flavorful. What flavor should it be full of? Hard to say! BBQ can mean so many things to so many different people and cultures. We do, however, believe that the ingredients it does contain should harmoniously combine to make one heavenly concoction. It can be a dipping sauce, marinade, or sauce for braising. People drizzle it on artisanal pizzas and chopped salads. Want to get wild? Mix it with mayo for a sandwich spread. When it comes to BBQ sauce, there are basically limitless possibilities.
We tried a wide variety of BBQ sauces to find the best BBQ sauce you can buy at the grocery store. So many of the sauces we tried were delicious, but these were the ones we would tell you to run out and buy immediately. Whether you’re looking for sweetness, heat, or something in between, we have a store bought BBQ sauce for you!
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- Trader Joe’s Carolina Gold BBQ Sauce
Not everyone was into the Trader Joe’s Carolina Gold BBQ Sauce, but I loved it. Yes, it may not be BBQ-y enough by some people’s standards because it isn’t a reddish-brown color or made with tomato. I, on the other hand, love a mustard-based BBQ sauce. If you haven’t had it, think peppery honey mustard. It’s so tangy and not too sweet. The flavor perfectly contrasts fatty meat, creamy slaw, and soft bread, making it the perfect sauce for a BBQ sandwich. This is one of my favorite variations of store bought bbq sauce of all time.
Credit: Liv Averett / Trader Joe’s
- KC Masterpiece Original BBQ Sauce
I had literally no expectations for this KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce. I assumed it would taste kind of bland and generic. I don’t know why, though, and I owe KC Masterpiece an apology. They make some of the best barbecue sauce we tried. It is super sweet and mild and actually really good. The sweet flavor and thick texture make it perfect for dipping. I’m tossing some chicken nuggets in the air fryer and enjoying them with this BBQ sauce as an afternoon snack when I don’t have the energy to head to the drive-thru.
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- 365 Original BBQ Sauce
Whole Food’s 365 Original BBQ Sauce reminds me of fast food BBQ sauce in the best way possible. It’s mostly sweet but very salty and a little smoky. It’s not as complex as some of the other sauces on our menu, but I like its simplicity. The texture is gelatinous which makes it perfect for dipping or coating anything. And, just like a fast food BBQ sauce, it’s cheap! Never pay McDonald’s 25 cents per sauce ever again.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Original BBQ Sauce
Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Original BBQ Sauce shocked me. I don’t love alcohol in food because I typically find booze to have a completely overwhelming flavor. This sauce proves that alcohol in food can actually be great. It’s thick and sweet, with smoke and undertones of tang from the whiskey. Because there is already alcohol involved, this sticky, sweet, tangy sauce should coat wings to be enjoyed during a football game or at a party.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Bachan’s Yuzu Original Japanese Barbecue Sauce
This is not your typical American BBQ Sauce, so be prepared to have your mind blown by the wonder of this Japanese BBQ sauce. Its soy sauce base makes it stand out from every other sauce on our list. The thin consistency makes it perfect for marinating meats and vegetables. Justine Sterling, Sporked editor-in-chief, says her family always keeps this sauce on the table with every meal because it is so flavorful and multipurpose. We liked all of the flavors we tried from Banchan, but Yuzu was our favorite because the hint of citrus really takes this to another level.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Baby Ray’s Hickory and Brown Sugar BBQ Sauce
You can’t talk about BBQ sauce without mentioning the man, the myth, the legend: Sweet Baby Ray. This hickory and brown sugar flavor is our favorite flavor out of the entire line of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce. Fun fact! His name is Dave Raymond and he claims to make “the best-selling barbecue sauce in the country.” And while it wasn’t our #1, we couldn’t leave it off the list because it is a great BBQ sauce. Their super sweet and thick family recipe was perfected in 1985 in Chicago. They entered it in a rib competition and the rest is history! To honor its history, I’m putting Sweet Baby Ray’s on a big rack of ribs.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Stubb’s Original BBQ Sauce
Stubb’s is an iconic BBQ restaurant and music venue in the heart of Austin, Texas, with sauce so good it earned it its own line of bottled products. Black pepper and vinegar are most noticeable in the flavor profiles in their sauce and Danny Palumbo, Sporked contributor and one-time Austin resident, asserted that this sauce would be ideal mopped all over fatty brisket. If you don’t have an industrial-sized smoker and a whole hog at home, this would also be great for pulled pork made in the crockpot.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Kinder’s Mild BBQ Sauce
Kinder’s Mild BBQ Sauce is the best BBQ sauce in the mild department. It has that classic flavor you imagine when you think of BBQ sauce. It’s perfectly balanced with notes of pepper, sugar, vinegar, and tomato. None of which are so prominent that they overpower the others. It’s flavorful but subtle so I think it would be perfect with a milder piece of meat like chicken. A BBQ chicken chopped salad, grilled chicken breast, and pulled chicken sandwich would all benefit from being doused in Kinder’s.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Blues Hog Original Barbecue Sauce
Someone yelled at me in the comments of the original version of this article because I didn’t try Blues Hog BBQ Sauce. After a quick Google search, I found a large, plastic bottle with saxaphone-playing pigs on the label that I could only get at Ace Hardware. Needless to say, I was intrigued. I ordered a bottle and was instantly wowed. It’s some of the best BBQ sauce I’ve ever had in my life. This is not the kind of BBQ sauce you’d use for dipping nuggets or pouring over a Western bacon cheeseburger. This is the type of BBQ sauce you actually put on meat that you intend to cook over an open flame or in a smoker. It’s slightly sweet, super peppery, and a little tangy. It is so good that I now buy it on a regular basis.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Famous Dave’s Sweet & Zesty BBQ Sauce
I must admit that I came in a little biased. I love Famous Dave’s products. Their cornbread and pickles are simply perfection, so I assumed I would like their BBQ sauce too. I was not wrong. It is one of the best BBQ sauce brands we tried, and the rest of the tasters agreed. Famous Dave’s Sweet & Zesty BBQ Sauce is exactly what it says: sweet and zesty! It has a rich thickness that would cling perfectly to ribs or chicken or a big, juicy portobello mushroom. This is the gold standard of BBQ sauce.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
Best from Trader Joe’s
Best for Nuggets
Best Budget
Best for Chicken Wings
Best Multipurpose
Best Sweet
Best for Pork
Best Mild
Best for Basting
Best of the Best
Every Style of BBQ Sauce, Explained
What makes Carolina BBQ sauce different from Texas BBQ sauce different from Memphis style BBQ sauce, different from Kansas city BBQ sauce, different from St. Louis style BBQ sauce, different from white BBQ sauce?
Other Products We Tried:
Trader Joe’s Sriracha, Trader Joe’s Truffle, all Sweet Baby Ray’s flavors, all Mambo flavors, all Bachan flavors, Primal Kitchen Mango Jalapeno, Good & Gather, Good & Gather Honey, all Happy Belly flavors, G Hughes, all Great Value flavors, Burman’s, First Street, Simple Truth, Sprouts, Signature Kitchen
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