North Carolina Vinegar Barbecue Sauce

April 30, 2021

North Carolina Vinegar Barbecue Sauce

This North Carolina barbecue sauce is made with a handful of ingredients, including apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, tomato paste, and cayenne. You’re gonna want to slather it on everything.

A person squeezing North Carolina barbecue sauce from a plastic bottle onto a sandwich.

Adapted from Matt Moore | The South’s Best Butts | Oxmoor House, 2017

This vinegar barbecue sauce is sweet, spicy, tangy, and begging to be drizzled over many things you’ll be pulling off the grill or smoker this summer. It’s also incredibly easy, coming together in literally seconds with only stirring, no simmering. Enough said.–Matt Moore

WHAT IS NORTH CAROLINA BARBECUE SAUCE?

This North Carolina vinegar barbecue sauce isn’t your typical barbecue sauce. It’s a thinner consistency than most barbecue sauces that’s adept for mopping meat while it’s on the grill or smoker or for dipping and dousing meat—especially richer cuts of meat—that you’ve pulled off the heat (we’re looking at you, pulled pork). Vinegar barbecue sauce is actually a classic North Carolina thing. As Matt Moore, author of The South’s Best Butts, explains, “North Carolina is a state that has the battle lines firmly drawn when it comes to barbecue, not to mention barbecue sauces. If you were in eastern North Carolina, this sauce would be almost translucent (void of all tomatoes) and accompany a whole-hog feast. If you found yourself in western North Carolina, your pork shoulder would arrive with a ruby red sauce that packs a vinegar punch. We’ve combined the best of both worlds for a veritable North Carolina sauce that pairs well with pulled or chopped pork.”