Missouri-style BBQ Sauce

Recipe by Catherine Neville

In Missouri, sweet heat takes center stage. Memphis-style sauce is the parent of the thick, sugar-tinged sauces favored here. Memphis recipes traveled up the Mississippi River, including one brought along by a man named Henry Perry, who moved to Kansas City in 1907 from a town near Memphis. (Perry founded the restaurant that eventually became Arthur Bryant’s; for a history of the Kansas City barbecue community, turn to p. 71.) This region’s thick, sweet sauce is typically drizzled (or, more frequently, slathered) directly on whatever’s been barbecued. Because Kansas City and St. Louis were both major geographic crossroads, that could be pork, beef or chicken. Likewise, sauce styles from every barbecue-loving region of the U.S. can be found in Missouri, but it’s the Memphis-influenced sauce that dominates. This style of sauce was bottled by St. Louisan Louis Maull in 1926, and then by H.J. Heinz Co. and Kraft Foods in the mid-20th century, with KC Masterpiece following in the ’70s. The nationwide proliferation of bottled Missouri-style sauce is the reason many Americans consider it to be the ideal barbecue sauce, even though this is the most recent style to have emerged.

Missouri-style barbecue sauce

• 3 Tbsp grapeseed oil

• 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced

• 5 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 Tbsp tomato paste

• 1 Tbsp chile powder

• 2 tsp onion powder

• 2 tsp mustard powder

• 2 tsp cayenne pepper

• ½ tsp ground nutmeg

• pinch ground clove

• 2 cups ketchup

• ¹⁄₃ cup molasses

• 1 cup water

• ¹⁄₃ cup brown sugar

• ¹⁄₃ cup apple cider vinegar

• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

• 1 Tbsp sea salt

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

| Preparation | In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat oil. Add onion and sauté until translucent. Add garlic, stirring until fragrant. Add tomato paste and stir to caramelize sugars in paste. Add next 6 ingredients and stir until fragrant and deep red. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Simmer for 30 minutes and serve.