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condiment LouisianaSouthern US VeganVegetarianDairy-freeNut-freeGluten-free option barbecuemake-aheadspicy

Louisiana barbecue sauce

Cane syrup, Creole mustard and enough hot sauce to notice, over a tomato base. It is the only one of the American barbecue sauces that tastes of a whole cuisine rather than of a technique, because Louisiana had its own pantry long before it had barbecue.

Prep10 min
Cook20 min
0
Servings16
Cook mode

Built on the Louisiana pantry rather than on any one house sauce

Ingredients

Written for a 2 L pot

Units
Temperature
Servings
16

Sauce

  • 300 g tomato passata
  • 100 g cane syrup, Steen's is the Louisiana bottle; it is darker and less sweet than golden syrup
  • 80 ml cider vinegar
  • 60 g Creole mustard, coarse, brown and vinegary; a whole grain mustard is the closest substitute
  • 40 ml hot sauce, a Louisiana cayenne one such as Crystal or Tabasco
  • 20 g dark brown sugar
  • 12 g Creole seasoning, the house blend, and it already contains salt
  • 6 g garlic granules
  • 6 g onion granules
  • 5 g coarse black pepper
  • to taste fine salt, at the end only, because the seasoning and the hot sauce are both salty

Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.

Method

  1. Everything except the salt into the pan cold, whisked smooth.
  2. Twenty minutes at a bare simmer, stirring and scraping the bottom. The cane syrup wants to catch.
  3. Salt at the very end, and taste first. Between the Creole seasoning and the hot sauce it may well need none at all.

Notes

  • Cane syrup is the ingredient that makes this Louisiana rather than a generic red sauce with chilli in it. It is pressed sugar cane cooked down, closer to a mild molasses than to honey, and it carries a slight bitterness and a mineral edge that sugar cannot.
  • Creole mustard is the second one. It is a coarse brown mustard with the seeds left whole and a good deal of vinegar, and it gives the sauce its texture as much as its bite.
  • It is hotter than the other four sauces on this site and it is meant to be. Louisiana does not treat heat as a garnish.
  • On chicken thighs it is unbeatable. The sugar in it wants skin and fat to work against. On lean white meat it reads as too sweet.
  • It keeps a month in the fridge.

Ingredient substitutions

  • Cane syrup is hard to find outside the American South. Zuckerrübensirup is the closest thing on a German shelf, being dark, slightly bitter and not very sweet. Golden syrup is much sweeter and much less interesting; if that is the route, use 80 g rather than 100 g and add a squeeze more vinegar.
  • Creole mustard substitutes well with a coarse German or French whole grain mustard plus a teaspoon of extra vinegar. Do not use Dijon, which is smooth and much hotter and will dominate the sauce.
  • Hot sauce brands matter here. Crystal and Tabasco are thin, vinegary cayenne sauces. Sriracha is sweet and garlicky, chipotle sauces are smoky, and either changes the sauce into something else.
  • Gluten. Most Creole mustards and cayenne hot sauces are gluten-free, but check the mustard, which is the one likely to carry wheat.

Sources consulted

Good with

Sources consulted

From Christoph Mayer

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