American · Condiment
Kansas City Barbecue Sauce
A thick, tomato-based sauce sweetened with molasses and brown sugar and sharpened with vinegar and mustard. The sweet, dark sauce most Americans picture when they hear the word "barbecue."
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Method
Combine the 400 g tomato ketchup, 60 g molasses, 45 ml cider vinegar, 40 g light brown sugar, 15 ml Worcestershire sauce, 8 g mustard powder, 6 g smoked paprika, 3 g ground black pepper and 3 g fine sea salt in a heavy saucepan and whisk until smooth.
Bring the sauce to a bare simmer and cook, stirring often, for 20m, until it has thickened enough to hold a trail when a spoon is drawn through it.
A slow simmer rather than a hard boil lets the vinegar's sharpness mellow and the sugars concentrate without catching on the base of the pan, where a tomato-and-sugar sauce this thick scorches easily.
Take the sauce off the heat and let it cool for 30m before bottling or serving; it will thicken further as it cools.
Kansas City barbecue is generally dated to Henry Perry, a pitmaster from Tennessee who arrived in the city around 1907 and sold slow-smoked meat wrapped in newspaper from a streetcar barn [1]. His sauce is remembered as harsh and peppery, closer to a vinegar dressing than to the thick, sweet condiment now sold under the city's name [2]. After Perry's death in 1940, the business passed to his employee Charlie Bryant, who later sold it to his brother Arthur, who built the restaurant now known as Arthur Bryant's [2].
Exactly who is responsible for the sweeter, tomato-and-molasses sauce now treated as the Kansas City standard is not fully agreed. One account credits Arthur Bryant himself with adjusting Perry's recipe and adding its characteristic sweetness [1]. Another places the turning point decades later and outside the Bryant lineage entirely: Rich Davis, a child psychiatrist, began selling KC Masterpiece to grocers in 1977 with a noticeably thicker, more molasses-forward sauce than the traditional Kansas City style, and that version is widely credited with setting the template most supermarket barbecue sauce has followed since [3].
Either way, the sauce eaten today (tomato base, brown sugar or molasses for sweetness, vinegar for cut, black pepper for heat) represents a later, sweeter turn on a tradition that started out considerably sharper. The version made here follows that now-standard profile rather than Perry's original.
Sources
- Who Invented Kansas City Barbecue?, Tasting TableCovers Henry Perry's arrival in Kansas City and Arthur Bryant's role in sweetening the house sauce.
- Henry Perry, The Pendergast Years (Kansas City Public Library / UMKC Center for Midwestern Studies)Describes Perry's original sauce as harsh and peppery, and covers the business passing from Charlie Bryant to Arthur Bryant.
- Rich Davis, Creator Of Kansas City Masterpiece Barbecue Sauce, Dies, KCUROn Rich Davis, a child psychiatrist, launching KC Masterpiece to grocers in 1977, and its molasses-forward sauce becoming the template most later Kansas City sauces followed.