A Ranking of the Best Supermarket BBQ Sauces

There’s no way around it — people have strong opinions when it comes to barbecue. From what actually constitutes barbecuing (versus simply cooking out) to the best meat to grace your grill, controversy abounds when it comes to this time-honored culinary tradition. And perhaps at the top of the list sits the great debate about barbecue sauce. 

In the South, basting your brisket or pulled pork in a bad barbecue sauce is tantamount to sacrilege, and you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll earn you a sanctimonious, “Well, bless their heart!” But not everyone has a homemade family recipe at the ready, and many of us wouldn’t have the time to whip it up even if we did. 

So, for the sake of your summer taste buds, we pored over some of the best bottled BBQ sauces on the market to bring you the top 12. To rank these supermarket sauces, we used a combination of three criteria: average customer rating, national availability and the frequency of mentions on “best of” lists. Here’s are the finger-lickin’ results of our calculations.