Name: Sugar Free BBQ Sauce Recipe (Keto)
Prep time: 1 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 6 min
Ingredients: 1 cup tomato passata (250ml); 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or white wine vinegar); salt and pepper (to taste); 2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce; 1 tsp onion powder; 1 tsp garlic powder; 1 tsp smoked paprika; 1 tbsp Sukrin Gold (or sweetener of your choice); 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (or more, to taste); pinch ground cloves (optional)

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A flavourful homemade sugar-free bbq sauce that comes together in only 5 minutes! It's spicy, smoky, sweet and tangy at the same time - perfect for grilling meat and dipping. The recipe is low in carbs, gluten-free and made with common kitchen cupboard ingredients.

"I love the thickness of this sauce, and the gorgeous deep red color! The Worcestershire is the perfect addition for depth of flavor!" (Faith)

This sugar free barbecue sauce is simply the most delicious thing you will ever taste. I love to slather it over meat before grilling or roasting it- hello, pork ribs, hello, meat loaf! It is also a tasty dipping sauce for appetisers from chicken wings to halloumi fries.

It is sweet and tangy and smokey, just like a good bbq sauce should be.

Even better, this keto bbq sauce recipe is incredibly easy and quick to make. In only 5 minutes, you can whip up a homemade sauce that contains absolutely no hidden sugars or preservatives.

Also, it's much cheaper than any quality sugar free bbq sauce you can buy in the stores.

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Ingredients
Instructions
Uses
4 Essential Flavors
Is Regular Barbecue Sauce Sugar Free?
Storage
More Sugar Free Sauce Recipes
Recipe

Ingredients

This no sugar bbq sauce or "no sugar added bbq sauce" uses common ingredients most of which you probably have in your kitchen right now:

Tomato Passata (tinned blended tomatoes)
Worcestershire Sauce
Apple Cider Vinegar
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Smoked Paprika
Sweetener
Cayenne pepper and cloves (both optional)

When I made my sugar free ketchup, I used tinned tomatoes. This meant I needed to reduce liquid to get the right consistency.

Here, I decided to use tomato passata. It's already quite thick so your sauce is literally ready in 5 minutes.

Note - this is NOT the thick double concentrated tomato paste but tinned blended tomatoes.

Instructions

The instructions are very straight forward:

STEP 1: Put all ingredients in a pot.

STEP 2: Cook on the stovetop over medium heat for 5 minutes to reduce the liquid.

STEP 3: Adjust seasoning to taste, fill into an airtight jar and let cool.

Low carb sugar free BBQ sauce in a glass jar with spoon

Uses

BEEF. It's a condiment I like to use in beef recipes, for example when marinating steaks or for ground beef. The tangy/sweet notes of the tamarind in the sauce works really well in this recipe.

PORK: We have used this homemade sugar free bbq sauce recipe in place of ketchup with sausages and I've marinated pork belly with it.

I grilled the pork belly strips for 30 minutes, then added the barbecue sauce and returned them to the oven for another 25 minutes. Delicious.

SPARE RIBS: I bet it would also be good for bbq ribs and as a topping for burgers (take a look at my Black Burger Buns!).

DIPPING: Use it as a dipping sauce for these awesomely crispy keto chicken wings or my Low Carb Keto Chicken Nuggets!

4 Essential Flavors

Barbecue sauce needs to include 4 wonderful flavors to taste authentic. Here they are:

1. SWEET

I used Sukrin Gold, which is a brown sugar substitute made with erythritol and stevia. You can replace it with your sweetener of choice. Allulose, monk fruit sweetener, xylitol or Splenda all work.

As always, do increase the sweetener if you prefer a sweeter sauce.

Some of the sweetness also comes from the tomatoes, so it's worth buying a quality brand of passata. If you wish, you could even use fresh tomatoes. In this case choose a sweet variety, make sure they're really ripe.

Blanch them so you can remove the skins and cook them with a little olive oil on a low heat until you have the desired consistency (my guess - this would take about 30 minutes), then puree.

2. TANGY

Vinegar is essential to the barbecue sauce taste. My vinegar of choice is apple cider vinegar, which has a host of health benefits. I know people who drink a glass of water with a spoonful of apple cider vinegar every morning to support their immune system.

Again, any mild white vinegar would work here.

3. SMOKY

We achieve this with smoked paprika powder. It will totally transform this sauce and it's not expensive.

Other options to add smokey flavor are hickory smoked sea salt or liquid smoke. These are pricier, so if you're on a budget, smoked paprika will do the trick.

Last but not least, I read somewhere that you can even blend smoked bacon rashers into the sauce to add that smokey taste. I thought this was an interesting idea and do want to try it out one day. If you want to try this out, omit the salt in the recipe as bacon is very salty.

4. SPICY

You can go as little or as much as you want. Personally, I love spices, but I've got kids in the house so I have to restrain myself. Either cayenne pepper or plain old chilli work. Mustard or mustard powder are also an option.

Start off with just a pinch and work your way up from there until you have reached your very own happy place.

Last but not least, I consider onion and garlic powder to be absolutely essential for this recipe. I used the powdered version for convenience and time-saving reasons.

It is, of course, possible to use fresh onion and garlic - if you don't mind the chopping and 30 minutes of cooking.

Note - Worcestershire sauce does contain a little sugar - but it's only 1g per 1 teaspoon. With only 2 teaspoons for the entire recipe, it does not increase the sugar content by much at all.

Sugar Free barbecue sauce in a glass jar with spoon

Is Regular Barbecue Sauce Sugar Free?

No! Ready-made sauces are usually laden with added sugar, as well as additives.

Sugar acts as a preservative. It extends the shelf life of products. It is cheap. It enhances taste.

4 grams of sugar is equivalent to 1 teaspoon of table sugar. When you read that 100g of Heinz Sweet and Spicy Barbecue Sauce contains 34g of sugar, for example, you know what you're in for.