We have been meaning to try Aaron Franklin's recipe for a tomato-based BBQ sauce for some time. We wanted something for use with beef plate ribs, and this sauce really fits the bill. This is Aaron Franklin's Regular Sauce, also called his Classic Sauce. You will find this recipe in Aaron Franklin's book, Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto. You'll also find it all over the internet on food and BBQ related websites. And you'll find they all have one thing in common: a somewhat puzzling ingredients list. We have sorted out the ingredients list for you and offer it up here for your BBQ pleasure. This sauce has some tang, a little bit of sweet and a little bit of heat. Aaron Franklin calls it a good all-purpose sauce.

Makes about 3 cups.

Ingredients

Instructions

Combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan and warm over medium heat, stirring occasionally. There is no need to bring the mixture to a boil, just warm it enough to melt and integrate the ingredients. Once you have done that, remove the pan from the heat and let the sauce cool. Transfer to a container and you can store the sauce in your refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Yield

We placed our finished sauce into squeeze bottles that you can buy for $1 at Dollar General stores and other places that carry kitchen wares. As you can see, this recipe yields two of those bottles.

Notes

• Besides fixing the mistake in the original recipe and clarifying some of the amounts, we also converted his 1¾ cups of ketchup to 14 ounces of ketchup because it is possible to purchase 14-ounce bottles of ketchup. To the right you will see a photo of a 14-ounce bottle of Heinz ketchup that you can find in any grocery store. When time comes to make the sauce, you can empty the bottle of ketchup into your sauce pan, add the ½ cup plus 2 Tbsp water to the bottle, put the lid on, give it a good shake, and now you can pour the water and remaining ketchup into the sauce pan.

  Now, Heinz regular ketchup contains high fructose corn syrup, so you might be interested in knowing that Heinz sells three varieties of their ketchup in 14-ounce bottles:

  • Heinz Tomato Ketchup:
  Tomato concentrate, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring.
  • Heinz No Salt Added Tomato Ketchup:
  Tomato concentrate, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, *Also SaltŪ salt substitute (potassium chloride, L-lysine monohydrochloride), spice, onion powder, natural flavoring.
  • Heinz Organic Tomato Ketchup:
  Organic tomato concentrate, organic distilled vinegar, organic cane sugar, salt, organic spice, organic onion powder, natural flavoring.

  If you don't mind the inconvenience of measuring your ketchup, Heinz also sells other varieties in other bottle sizes that you might prefer to their ordinary ketchup:

  • Heinz No Sugar Added Tomato Ketchup:
  Tomato concentrate, distilled vinegar, sucralose, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring.
  • Heinz Simply Heinz Tomato Ketchup:
  Tomato concentrate, distilled vinegar, cane sugar, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring.
  • Heinz Sweeetened With Honey Reduced Sugar Tomato Ketchup:
  Tomato concentrate, distilled vinegar, honey, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring.