a sauceheavy tomato sauce
also: tomato-and-sugar sauce · sweet red sauce · thick tomato barbecue sauce · Kansas City-style sauce
'Sweet' or 'mild' on Upstate menus; 'barbecue sauce', without qualification, to most of the country.
A thick red sauce built on tomato — ketchup, paste or sauce — sweetened with brown sugar or molasses, soured with vinegar and seasoned with spices, cooked down until it clings. It is the sauce of the western and northwestern corner of South Carolina on the state's four-sauce map: the tourism office's 'tomato-and-sugar sauce', the one it says you are most likely to find on a grocery shelf. It goes on after cooking — on the plate, on the bun, on ribs and chicken — and sits on the meat rather than soaking in.
The story Cited · wp-barbecue-sauce
This is the national sauce at the state's edge. Heinz put out the first major bottled barbecue sauce in 1940, General Foods' Open Pit followed, Kraft came in around 1960 and advertised its way to first place, and after the war the sugar and the ingredient count of sauces climbed; the typical commercial sauce is the Kansas City kind, 'thick, reddish-brown, tomato-based, and made with sugar, vinegar, and spices', which Wikipedia's sauce history places downstream of the Piedmont's thin dip and Memphis's sauce. The South Carolina Barbeque Association says the heavy tomato sauce 'evolved only recently, that is, in the last sixty or so years', pushed by commercial brands, and Wikipedia's South Carolina article calls it 'more similar to sauces popular in other states'. Inference — a sauce that arrived by bottle would settle where the older sauces were thinnest on the ground, at the state's western edge, farthest from the whole-hog coast and the German Midlands. Henry's Smokehouse in Greenville makes its own tomato-based mild sauce by hand and sets a mustard-based spicy one beside it.
How it is done Tradition
Simmer tomato with brown sugar or molasses, vinegar, salt, black pepper and spices until it thickens. It is a finishing and table sauce: brushed on ribs and chicken near the end of cooking or served alongside, spooned over chopped pork on the plate. It is the one Carolina sauce that coats rather than soaks.
Today Cited · web-henrys-destination-bbq
Henry's Smokehouse in Greenville serves its tomato-based mild sauce beside a mustard one; national bottles fill the western shelves. Greenwood's July Festival of Discovery judges Carolina barbecue and hash under Kansas City Barbeque Society rules.
Facts
| base | heavy-tomato |
|---|---|
| styles | Heavy tomato barbecue |
| region | The Upstate, South Carolina, The American South |
| links | Barbecue sauce — Wikipedia · South Carolina's Four Barbecue Sauces — Discover South Carolina · Henry's Smokehouse — Destination BBQ |
| confidence | medium · needs verification · updated 2026-09-16 |
On the label
| what was read | bottle · Ford's Foods, Raleigh, NC |
|---|---|
| vinegar | #4 on the label |
| tomato | #2 on the label |
| mustard | #7 on the label |
| sugar | #1 on the label |
| sugar per tablespoon | 6 g (a tablespoon of table sugar is about 12.6 g) |
| sodium per tablespoon | 105 mg |
| the label, in order | Cane Sugar, Tomato Puree (Tomato Paste, Water), Water, Apple Cider Vinegar, Vegan Worcestershire Sauce (Water, Distilled Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, Molasses, Caramel Color, Tamarind, Onion and Garlic), Salt, Organic Yellow Mustard (Organic Distilled Vinegar, Organic Mustard Seed, Salt, Organic Turmeric, Organic Spices), Horseradish, Lemon Juice, Molasses, Dried Onion, Xanthan Gum, Spice, Natural Smoke, Dried Garlic |
Read from this page, 2026-09-16. Sugar first, tomato second, vinegar fourth: the order runs opposite to the eastern sauce's. Six grams of sugar to the tablespoon, against about 12.6 g in a tablespoon of table sugar. Made in Raleigh, which is eastern North Carolina — the thick sauce is not confined to the state lines its name suggests. Ingredients from the maker's page, revision code 26-1; sugar and sodium from USDA FoodData Central record 1862954, which lists the same ingredients. Every bottle we have read is on the sauce page.
Recipes you may use
Public-domain cookbooks are printed here in full, spelling and all. Where a recipe is still in copyright, the page gives the ingredients — a list of what goes in is a fact — and links to the rest.
Barbecue Sauce (Kansas City-style)
- 1 cup (235 mL) ketchup
- 6 tablespoons (90 mL) Worcestershire sauce
- 4 tablespoons (60 mL) butter or margarine
- 3 tablespoons (45 mL) white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon (15 mL) plain prepared mustard
- 3 tablespoons (45 mL) finely minced yellow onion
- 4 teaspoons (20 mL) bottled liquid smoke flavor (hickory)
- ¼ teaspoon (1 mL) Louisiana-style red pepper sauce
- ½ cup (120 mL) brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon (15 mL) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon (5 mL) salt
Makes 8 servings.
The thick sweet style the up-country South Carolina sauces sit closest to: ketchup, brown sugar, Worcestershire, butter, a little vinegar, liquid smoke.
Barbecue Sauce I
- ¼ cup (62.5 mL) brown sugar
- 1 tbsp (15 mL) garlic powder
- 1 tbsp (15 mL) paprika powder
- 2 tsp (10 mL) salt
- 1 heaping tsp (6.66 mL) of ground coffee beans
- 1 cup (250 mL) ketchup
- ½ cup (125 mL) water
- 3 tbsp (45 mL) white vinegar
- A shot of whiskey or ½ shot of cognac
- A squeeze of lemon juice
Ketchup, brown sugar, paprika, garlic and a heaping teaspoon of ground coffee, simmered half an hour.
Barbecue Sauce (Sweet)
- 1 cup tomato catsup (ketchup)
- ¾ cup cider vinegar
- 2–3 tablespoons mustard
- 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1–2 teaspoons celery seed
- 3 tablespoons margarine
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon onion flakes
- Garlic powder or minced garlic to taste (optional)
Barbecue Sauce II
- 1 cup ketchup (catsup)
- ½ cup molasses
- ½ teaspoon "concentrated" liquid smoke flavoring
Three ingredients: ketchup, molasses, liquid smoke. The shortest way to the thick red end of the range.
Not to be confused with
- light tomato sauce — Heavy tomato coats the meat and tastes of sugar; light tomato pours and tastes of vinegar.
- Lexington dip — Both are red. Dip is thin and sour and soaks into the meat; heavy tomato sits on top of it.
Its kin
Who points back
Sources
- FoodData Central, Branded Foods · link
- Barbecue in South Carolina — Wikipedia · link
- Barbecue sauce — Wikipedia · link
- South Carolina's Four Barbecue Sauces (Gwen Fowler) · link
- South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism — the four barbecue sauce regions · link
- BBQ History (Lake E. High Jr.) · link
- Henry's Smokehouse — official site · link
- Henry's Smokehouse on Wade Hampton in Greenville · link
- SC Festival of Discovery · link
- Cookbook:Barbecue Sauce (Kansas City-style) — Wikibooks Cookbook · link
- Cookbook:Barbecue Sauce I — Wikibooks Cookbook · link
- Cookbook:Barbecue Sauce (Sweet) — Wikibooks Cookbook · link
- Cookbook:Barbecue Sauce II — Wikibooks Cookbook · link
Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.