Barbecue sauce
A sweet, tangy modern sauce most common on American-style pizzas topped with cooked chicken.
- Cooked or uncooked
- cooked
- Acidity
- moderate
- Sweetness
- high
- Salt
- moderate
- Water content
- low
- Texture
- Thick, glossy
Base ingredients
tomato base or ketchup, vinegar, sugar, spices, smoke flavouring
Application and bake suitability
Applied moderately; its sweetness can dominate if overused
High sugar content browns and can burn quickly at very high temperatures; better suited to moderate bakes
Preparation and storage
Usually a tomato-or-ketchup base simmered with vinegar, sugar, and spices until glossy and thickened; often used pre-made rather than made in-house given widely available, shelf-stable commercial versions.
Very shelf-stable thanks to its sugar and vinegar content — keeps for weeks refrigerated, far longer than a fresh tomato sauce.
Common problems
- High sugar content scorches at Neapolitan-range temperatures
- Can overwhelm other toppings if too generously applied
Substitutions
- cooked-tomato-sauce (for a more traditional base if barbecue's sweetness isn't wanted)
Pairs well with
Toppings
Styles using this sauce
The defining base of the 'Aussie' — bacon, egg, and barbecue sauce — echoing a traditional Australian breakfast rather than an Italian tomato base.
Evidence
Barbecue sauce as a pizza base paired with cooked chicken is a well-documented modern American pizzeria item associated with the 1980s California gourmet-pizza movement rather than a traditional regional style.
- The Pizza Bible — Ten Speed Press