We Taste-Tested 13 Brands of Barbecue Sauce—Here Are Our Favorites

I grew up eating Southern barbecue at the homes of aunts and distant cousins in the Carolinas and rural Virginia. At family reunions, there was almost always a whole hog or a pork shoulder, pit-smoked and cooked low and slow in an old drum over hardwood for hours on end, until the meat practically fell apart. It was chopped fine, sometimes with bits of crackling mixed in, and usually served on a bun with slaw. The sauce? Lexington-style: sharp and vinegar-forward with just enough sweetness. Despite this regional loyalty—and stern warnings from my Uncle Scotty, who manned the pit—the crowd, usually over 200 strong, still insisted on “regular” barbecue sauce. The red, sweet kind made famous in Kansas City. Even in the land of sugar-shunning barbecue, that smoky-sweet tomato sauce made its way to the table.

There are many regional barbecue sauce styles in the US, including the vinegar-based sauces of Eastern and Western North Carolina, the mustard-forward sauce found in South Carolina, Alabama’s creamy mayonnaise-based sauce, and the tangy tomato-based sauces from Memphis and St. Louis. But walk into almost any grocery store, and you’ll find that many bottles labeled “barbecue sauce” are Kansas City–style.

With that in mind, we decided to narrow down our barbecue sauce taste test to Kansas City-style sauces. To find the very best Kansas City–style barbecue sauce, our editors taste-tested 16 different brands you’re likely to find at your local grocery store, along with several sourced directly from Kansas City. We tasted each one on its own in random order, without knowing which brand was which. After making our way through all the sauces, we tabulated the results and crowned an overall winner, along with several worthy contenders that we’d be happy to serve at our own cookouts.

The Criteria

A classic Kansas City–style barbecue sauce should have enough vinegar to provide a tangy counterpoint to the sweetness of brown sugar or molasses, along with a gentle kick of heat from spices like chile powder, black pepper, or cayenne. The sauce should be tomato-based and made with either ketchup or tomato sauce, and should include seasonings such as garlic powder, onion powder, mustard, and maybe a touch of clove or allspice for complexity. Liquid smoke is often used to mimic the flavor of traditional pit cooking, but it often tastes glaringly artificial; it should offer a hint of smokiness without overpowering the nuanced flavors of the sauce. Kansas City–style sauces should also be thick enough to cling to grilled meats, such as ribs or brisket, but still be fluid enough to baste with or drizzle on the side.

Our Winners: It’s a Tie!

Trader Joe’s Organic Kansas City Style BBQ Sauce

This winning sauce was the most universally liked among our tasters and the least offensive to anyone. Jessie, our visuals editor, thought it was well-balanced. Genevieve, our senior editor, described it as “sweet, tangy, savory, and not excessively so.” Except for our editorial director, Daniel, who thought the tomato paste was too dominant, everyone thought it was balanced: It was sweet but nicely so, with a pleasant, mild acidity.

Bull’s Eye BBQ Sauce

This sauce was the most nostalgic-inducing of the bunch; Daniel thought it tasted “like absolute classic bottled barbecue sauce flavor.” Amanda, our associate visuals director, praise the “balance of spices,” while our associate culinary editor Laila enjoyed its smokiness. This was a sauce that many of us would take to our next barbecue.

Runners-Up

• 365 by Whole Foods Market, Original Barbecue Sauce
• Cowtown BAR-B-Q Sauce
• Good & Gather Organic Original BBQ Sauce

All three earned solid scores across the board. While none were quite as delicious as our winners, our editors still enjoyed each of the sauces above. Whole Foods’ sauce was molasses-forward and generally considered to have a balanced flavor. Target’s Good & Gather sauce was a favorite for its classic, bright, and tangy barbecue flavor and, according to Daniel, would be a good choice for anyone who wants “a more molasses-y sauce.” Cowtown got high marks for its complexity and what Laila described as its “rich spice flavor.” Each had something going for it—whether it was brightness, spice, or balance—that made them worthy of a spot on the picnic table.

The Contenders

• 365 by Whole Foods Market, Original Barbecue Sauce
• Arthur Bryant’s Original BBQ Sauce
• Buffalo Wild Wings Honey BBQ Sauce
• Bull’s Eye BBQ Sauce
• Cowtown BAR-B-Q Sauce
• Famous Dave’s Rich & Sassy BBQ Sauce
• Gates Original Classic Bar-B-Q Sauce
• Good & Gather Organic Original BBQ Sauce
• Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauce
• KC Masterpiece Original Barbecue Sauce
• Kinder’s Original Barbecue Sauce
• Kraft Original Slow-Simmered Barbecue BBQ Sauce
• Montgomery Inn Barbecue Sauce
• Stubb’s Original BBQ Sauce
• Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Sauce
• Trader Joe’s Organic Kansas City Style BBQ Sauce

In Conclusion

Most of the sauces we tested followed a similar basic formula—tomato base, sugar, vinegar, and spices—but the execution varied significantly. Some were far too sweet, with high-fructose corn syrup listed as the first ingredient and almost no acidity to balance the sweetness. Others leaned heavily on liquid smoke or “natural smoke flavor,” resulting in an overwhelming and often artificial-tasting smokiness. A few were overly acidic, while others tasted like little more than slightly spiced-up ketchup.

Our favorite sauces struck a better balance: rich and sweet, but layered with tang, spice, and just enough smoke to evoke that familiar pit-cooked flavor. Most of our top picks list tomato purée as the first ingredient—with the exception of Bull’s Eye, which lists it second—and all include molasses as a key sweetener and flavoring agent. Trader Joe’s and Cowtown’s sauces stand out for skipping thickeners entirely. While Trader Joe’s took the top spot, runners-up like Bull’s Eye, Whole Foods, Cowtown, and Target’s Good & Gather brought plenty of classic, crowd-pleasing barbecue flavor we’d be happy to serve at any cookout.

Our Testing Methodology

All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill our tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation of actual results possible.