🔥 Daddy’s Saturday Sauce — Eastern NC BBQ, Just Like Daddy Made!
Hey, y’all! Ye brothers and sisters of the vinegary Eastern North Carolina BBQ Sauce persuasion! ❤️
We all have our favorites, don't we? And we've probably gotten into a few serious conversations about why YOUR sauce is the best. Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m about to introduce you to the REAL best… Daddy’s Saturday Sauce!
Some of the most common comments I hear from tasters and customers?
“Oh, my gawsh! That tastes just like [insert your favorite eastern NC vinegar BBQ sauce here]… only BETTER!”
Now, that's what I'm talkin' about! 😋
And here's another reason to love it: NO High Fructose Corn Syrup!
🍗 How to Make Daddy’s Saturday Sauce
All you need is Aunt Dee Dee’s seasoning mix, apple cider vinegar, and water. Add a squirt of ketchup if you like a little “red” in your sauce. And at eat'n time, a couple of sticks of butter because, y’all… butter doth make everything better!
Mix the seasoning with apple cider vinegar and water according to the package directions. Add ketchup if desired.
Warm the sauce in a pot with the butter until everything is melted and combined. Never let it boil!
Grill your chicken or pork, then toss it in the warm, buttery sauce — or serve the sauce on the side for dipping.
One package makes TWO PINTS (that's a whole quart) of sauce! Compare that to store-bought pint jars. You get twice that amount without hauling home bottles, taking up pantry space, or adding more packaging waste.
And don't stop at BBQ chicken and pulled pork! Keep reading for some of my favorite ways to put this sauce to work.
🍽️ More Ways to Enjoy Daddy’s Saturday Sauce
- The BEST Butt! Use it with pulled pork for a classic Eastern NC BBQ experience.
- Refrigerator Pickles: Make quick pickles with okra, squash, asparagus, cukes, onions and more. It's a great way to use up those garden goodies and little bits of leftover veggies. Just fill a big jar with cut up vegetables, fill with sauce and refrigerate. Tasty pickles anytime... and when gone, just add more veggies in the same jar of sauce.
- Pickled Red Onions: Make quick, tangy pickled onions for sandwiches, burgers, or a tasty side.
- BBQ Sauce Gravy: Thicken warmed sauce with a cornstarch slurry for a delicious gravy to spoon over your BBQ and bread.
- BBQ Compound Butter: Mix the sauce seasoning into softened butter for a flavor-packed finishing butter.
- Oyster Shooters: Add a bit of ketchup to some sauce to thicken. Put some into a shot glass and plop a plump oyster into the sauce. Add a squeeze of citrus (my personal fave is orange). Shoot it!And don't forget the white bread for soppin' up all that goodness!
❤️ How Daddy’s Saturday Sauce Came to Be
When I was growing up, most Saturdays meant hopping in the car with Daddy for a little ride down the road in Franklin County to Mr. Grover Crudup's chicken house. Folks would be lined up, waiting to buy what we thought was the BEST chicken ever!
The ladies worked side by side, processing those birds (I'll leave some of that to your imagination!) and plucking feathers as fast as they could go. The freshly harvested chickens were wrapped in freezer-locker paper and bundled up with masking tape. Nothing fancy — just fresh chicken and a Saturday tradition.
When we got home, Daddy would pull out his old, banged-up pot and start warming his sauce on the stove. NEVER to boil!
Daddy had a charcoal grill beside his recliner, thanks to a clever little design in our house. When he built it, he had a mini fireplace built beside the wood-burning fireplace, with the wood box space between them. He could grill while sitting in his recliner, armed with his long tongs and fork!
I've never seen another house designed quite like that, but it was pure genius. Daddy was always ahead of his time with ideas.
Now, if you've browsed my page, you already know Mama wasn't much of a cook. 😂 There was a little pass-through window behind Daddy's chair where we could hand things back and forth from the grill — even though our tiny galley kitchen was only about six steps away!
As the chicken pieces finished cooking, Daddy dropped them into his pot of buttery sauce. When everything was done, he'd slap on an old, ill-fitting lid and shake the daylights out of that chicken. And then we'd eat the BEST BBQ chicken you've ever tasted!
These days, I love my chicken skin crispy, so I often grill the chicken and dab it in the sauce just before serving. That way, I get all that delicious, tangy flavor without giving up the crunch.
But y'all do it any way you take a notion! That's the beauty of good BBQed anything.
I've worked hard to create a seasoning mix that lets you bring a little of Daddy's Saturday tradition into your own kitchen. I hope Daddy would be proud of this one. ❤️
🧂 A Little Note About the Salt
This mix contains just 1 teaspoon of salt in the entire package.
Daddy’s Saturday Sauce is juicy, tangy, buttery, and downright finger-lickin' good. And when you're enjoying BBQ chicken or pork, a little sauce has a way of finding its way everywhere!
Add a set of BIBS (flour sack towels) to your cart. Consider it proper attire for a good ol' Eastern NC BBQ supper. 😂 These things with a mop makes a fun gift packet for the grillers and BBQ saucers in your world!
From Daddy's grill to your table — here's to Saturday traditions and full bellies.
Ingredients: cane sugar, brown sugar, molasses powder (cane sugar, cane molasses), crushed red pepper, black pepper, salt, cayenne pepper
NO... gluten, MSG, additives, preservatives, or known allergens.
Packaged in a facility that also processes sesame.
Makes 1 quart of sauce.
Most of Aunt Dee Dee’s herbs and spices are non-GMO. However, I don’t make an across-the-board non-GMO claim because a few ingredients cannot be verified. Some herbs and spices simply require growing climates not found in the U.S., so they must be sourced internationally.
Blended and packaged in the USA using domestic (whenever possible) and imported ingredients.