Keto BBQ Sauce

This keto BBQ sauce recipe has no sugar and no sugar substitute!!!

BBQ sauce is special. A great low carb BBQ sauce is divine. This is one of those.

Like all good recipes, there is a back story behind this one…

Ribs were part of our family’s annual reunion dinner menu for 20 years. My mom and I were in charge of that party and so we were responsible for almost all of the preparations – including the food. We spent hours in the kitchen, the day before the big event, slicing the rib slabs into sections of 3-4 ribs each, then parboiling them. Once cooked, we’d transfer them to gallon sized bags and add store bought (and high sugar) bbq sauce. Our sauce of choice was Bill Johnson’.s BBQ Sauce. The next day, we’d put them in the oven to reheat.

But with 9 grams of sugar for each 2 tbsp, I can’t eat our beloved Bill’s sauce anymore. And I have successfully created a marinade that I use for my BBQ chicken. The problem is that only works for us low-carb’ers because you’re not eating much of the marinade.

I also tried several commercial low carb BBQ sauces. Some were pretty good, but they all include alternative sweeteners. I also tried several low carb and keto BBQ recipes from other bloggers. There are some great bloggers out there with some wonderful recipes. But none of them had the full flavor that I wanted.

The other problem I ran into was that the low carb BBQ sauce recipes I found relied on alternative sweeteners, like Swerve or Stevia, etc. Some of my family members are sensitive to the flavor – meaning they hate the flavor of sugar alternatives. They prefer that I don’t use it in recipes that they eat.

So I experimented with various spices and, after many attempts, I landed on this one. It’s become a favorite. I recently used this keto BBQ sauce on some oven roasted spare ribs. It was awesome. I hope you’ll enjoy this recipe as much as my family does!

I like Muir Glen’s organic tomato sauce for this recipe.  My local Kroger grocery carries it. Look for it at yours.

This recipe calls for ground coriander, but coriander is commonly sold as whole dried seeds. You can place the whole seeds in a mortar and use a pestle to crush them (if you have one). Or try to crush them in a plastic bag using a mallet or hammer, but tap lightly to not bust open the plastic (ask me how I know!). Nowadays I use a small coffee grinder to make my own ground coriander. It is an inexpensive one from KRUPS that was given to me recently as a birthday gift. I love it. It works great on coffee beans as well as a variety of seeds and nuts.