Canning Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce | Easy Barbecue Sauce Recipe

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In today’s post, I’m excited to share a delightful recipe for canning sweet and spicy BBQ sauce. The formal name for it is Paw Paw’s Bywater BBQ Sauce from The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving (Amazon) This recipe is fantastic because it uses all shelf-stable ingredients, making it easy to have everything on hand at any time. Plus, there’s no chopping involved! While it does have a lot of ingredients, you can gather them ahead of time, and most are already in your pantry. The rest can be easily found at your local grocery store. 

Also, since this is a Ball canning recipe, you can rest assured that it’s a safe canning recipe.

I’ll be canning this sauce in my Nesco canner (Amazon), but you can use any water bath or steam canner you have. This recipe makes 6 pint jars, but I can only fit 5 pints in my Nesco, so I might have some extra to store in the fridge. 

Canning Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce (Video)

Check out the video for how to can sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, also known as PawPaw’s Bywater BBQ Sauce!

Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce Ingredients and Preparation 

Here’s the description from the book (Amazon): “Take your BBQ to New Orleans. This spectacular sauce has all that mouth-watering Deep South flavor with hints of sweet and a hot, spicy kick.” That’s exactly what we’re aiming for with this recipe: sweet and spicy goodness, and what better way to get it than to can up some sweet and spicy bbq sauce!

Combine the Dry Ingredients

To start, you’ll need to stir together the first nine ingredients, which are essentially the dry ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need: 

• 2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar 
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt 
• 3 tablespoons garlic powder 
• 3 tablespoons onion powder 
• 3 tablespoons dry mustard 
• 1 tablespoon black pepper 
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika 
• 2 teaspoons ground red pepper 
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder 

Add in the Wet Ingredients

Once you’ve combined your dry ingredients, it’s time to add in the wet ingredients.

You’ll need: 

• 8 cups ketchup
• 2 cups water 
• 1 1/4 cups apple cider vinegar 
• 1/4 cup apple cider or apple juice 
• 1/3 cup honey 
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard (or Creole mustard if you can find it) 
• 2 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 
• 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice 
• 1 tablespoon fiery fermented hot sauce or Tabasco sauce 

Helpful tips: For the ketchup, I used a 64 oz bottle of ketchup, plus 1 1/3 cups ketchup. Since it can be hard to get all of the ketchup out of the bottle, after squeezing out most of the ketchup, I added the water, apple cider vinegar, and apple juice to the bottle. I then shook the bottle, and poured out the liquid. This results in a nearly perfectly clean bottle, and thus no wasted ketchup!

Cooking the Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce

Before canning the sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, you need to combine all the ingredients in the pot and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce the heat to medium and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring often to prevent scorching. 

Preparing and Filling the Canning Jars

After 20 minutes, the sauce should be slightly thickened. Turn off the heat and prepare to fill your jars. Especially since this is a hot pack recipe, it’s important to heat your canning jars and water before filling them with the hot bbq sauce.

Fill each jar to a 1/2 inch headspace. Use a debubbler to remove any air bubbles and adjust the headspace as needed. 

Wipe the rims of the jars clean, place the lids on, and secure them with rings until fingertip-tight. Using a jar lifter, place the jars into the canner. For the Nesco canner, make sure the valve is in the exhaust position for the entire process. 

Canning Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce

Water bath or steam can the bbq sauce for 15 minutes, adjust for altitude.

Pro tip: If you are unsure how to adapt your canning recipes for altitude, check out my article, How Altitude Impacts Canning.

Start the canner, and once there’s a steady stream of steam, begin the countdown. 

I ended up with more sauce than expected, so I ran a second batch in the canner. In total, I got five pints and four half-pints from this recipe, yielding seven pints instead of the six that the book said it would yield.

If you are using the Nesco or Carey canner and only have one, or don’t want to use a second one, you can reheat the sauce and process it in batches. 

I always like to let me jars cool a bit in the canner after processing before removing them from the canner, and between that, and the relatively short processing time, I felt comfortable running two batches in my Nesco canner back to back.

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Conclusion 

Once the processing is done, let the jars cool before removing them from the canner. Between 12 and 24 hours after processing, check the seals, and if any jars haven’t sealed properly, use them first, or recan within 24 hours. This sweet and spicy bbq sauce is delicious. My husband actually said that it’s the best bbq sauce he’s ever eaten! It’s sweet with a bit of a kick. If you prefer less spice, you can omit the cayenne pepper, or you can cut the amount of cayenne pepper in half. There are so many delicious spices in this recipe, that unless you like it spicy, you won’t miss the cayenne pepper.