Homemade Bourbon Barbecue Sauce (Without Refined Sugar!)

This Homemade Bourbon Barbecue Sauce is sweetened with honey instead of refined sugar and is bursting with flavor. 

If there’s one thing I want to teach others about healthy eating, it’s that it doesn’t have to feel like you’re depriving yourself. Healthy foods don’t have to be bland or boring. The right spices or sauce can elevate whatever you’re cooking into something that tastes spectacular and nobody would guess is “healthy.”

That’s where something like Homemade Bourbon Barbecue Sauce comes in. You can use this sauce, with its deep, smoky flavor, to elevate a number of healthy, nutritious dishes. Don’t worry. Today I’m sharing the recipe for the sauce, but more ideas on how to use it will be coming soon. I can’t stop using this for everything!

So why should you bother making your own barbecue sauce? I have a few reasons why it’s worth the effort.

First, if you typically buy the most popular (*cough* Sweet Baby Ray’s *cough*) barbecue sauce from the store, the number one ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Our bodies don’t process that stuff very well and it’s one of the largest contributors to the obesity epidemic (read more about that here).

To be fair, there are actually a lot of healthier options on the market today that are sweetened with real cane sugar. I would definitely suggest one of them instead of any brand that has high fructose corn syrup if you’re going the store-bought route.

But making it at home you get to control how you sweeten it! I sweeten this Bourbon Barbecue Sauce with honey. Now, is honey really any better than regular sugar? I’ll be the first to admit that honey is sugar and our bodies treat it as such. So yes, moderation is the key with anything sweetened with sugar or honey.

I still think that honey is a better way to sweeten foods because it does have some redeeming nutritional qualities. For example, honey contains the following minerals: calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and zinc. 

So while cutting out sugars completely is probably best for your health, it’s not necessarily realistic, right? Well, at least not for me and my family. Instead, we practice moderation and use natural sweeteners that have some nutritional value like honey and maple syrup instead of refined sugar.

I’ve got one more reason why I think it’s worth making your own barbecue sauce at home.

FLAVOR!

You guys, this Homemade Bourbon Barbecue Sauce has some fabulous flavors going on. I’m not a bourbon girl when it comes to cocktails, but decided to try to make a barbecue sauce with it since my husband is and we always have a bottle (or ten) of bourbon on hand.

Wow! I was super impressed with the flavor the bourbon brought to the barbecue sauce. I didn’t expect to love it, but I did.

There’s also a nice smokiness thanks to smoked paprika. GET SOME. You need it in your life.

I can’t get enough of this Homemade Bourbon Barbecue Sauce and think you’ll love it, too. I use it in my Slow Cooker Turkey Barbecue Chili and it is perfect in this  20 Minute Barbecue Chicken Quinoa Bowl.

It would be absolutely delicious to use it in this recipe for Barbecue Burgers, too!

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