Piggy Ribs

Well, now that we have your attention, we can say for certain that the best barbecue sauce for ribs is the sauce you think is best. Whether it is store-bought, home made, or somewhere in between, don't waste your time or ruin your meat with something you don't really like. We would like to offer some pointers for your taste experience; the rest is up to you.

Best Barbecue Sauce- Tastes over Time

Taste experts and chemists will tell you, you don't taste or recognize every ingredient in a sauce or food at the same moment. Some things 'register' in your brain soon after putting them in your mouth, others take a little more time. As near as we can tell, sauces with the spicy, sweet, and sour elements all in them will be recognized in this taste progression: First, you taste the sweet part (sugars, syrups, etc.), then the sour part 'shows up' (w-sauce, citrus juices, vinegar), lastly the spicy heat part kicks in (garlic, mustard, peppers, etc.).

While some sauces leave out one of these elements, the lion's share contains all of them. The only difference being what the choice is for each taste part and how strong the desired effect is. So, you wind up with a million varieties of sweet barbecue sauce, sour barbecue sauce, and spicy barbecue sauce, with some embracing more than one of these taste factors.

Find the best barbecue sauce for ribs here.

Tastes over the land

Just like there are different definitions of barbecue across America and the world, there are different definitions of barbecue sauce. In the Carolinas alone, there are several bases to barbecue sauce depending on where you are. In one spot, vinegar is the base. In another, it's mustard. Yet another area has more tomato-based sauce. Some make the sauce spicy; some make it more sweet. All of this various sauciness is taking place in just a two-state area!

Kansas City and Texas both have sauce that is tomato-based, but Kansas City's goes toward the thick and sweet side, and Texas, the thinner and spicier side. The sauce in Kentucky and Alabama is a black-and-white picture. Kentucky is home to a black dip made of Worcestershire sauce and vinegar. Alabama's sauce is white and made of vinegar with raw eggs or mayonnaise.

Several factors that help to create and maintain the different 'sauce zones' are: the availability of certain local ingredients, the type of barbecue meat predominantly served, and the cultural factor of keeping with the traditions of ancestors who may have brought sauce recipes when they immigrated.

If you enjoy discovery, find out about the different regional sauces and perhaps try making a few that appeal to you.

Great. But what does Piggy Ribs think is the best barbecue sauce?

We at Piggy Ribs maintain that the pig is the quintessential Southern barbecue creature, and that the ribs offer more enjoyment in preparation and consumption than any other part. Though we occasionally go against our better judgment and try vinegar-based or mustard-based sauces, we always come around to the assertion that the best barbecue sauce for ribs is the thick, sweet, smoky, and slightly spicy sauce that Kansas City is known for. Perhaps it's because that sauce seems to cover all the bases of sweet, sour, and spicy, and it leans toward sweet, which is the natural tendency of well done ribs to begin with.