Diabetic BBQ Sauce Recipe (Easy, Quick & Tasty)
When it comes time to start making changes to your diet when dealing with diabetes, it often means giving up some of your favorite meals and recipes. There is sugar in seemingly every tasty item you find in the grocery store. Luckily, there is an easy diabetic BBQ sauce recipe so you can enjoy all your favorite dishes from BBQ chicken to baby back ribs.
How to Make Easy Diabetic BBQ Sauce
Some healthy recipes are incredibly involved. You need multiple kitchen appliances, and seem to go through every dish in the cabinet. Sometimes ingredients are difficult to find, and this often leads us to buy something processed instead of making it ourselves.
This simple diabetic BBQ recipe uses easy-to-find ingredients without the need for any fancy equipment or a sink-load of dishes. With easy-to-follow directions, you’ll have delicious low sugar BBQ sauce without the headache.
Great Flavor Without The High Price Tag
If you’re accustomed to the low-sugar game, you’ve likely tried a multitude of diabetic-friendly options for home cooking. These often cost significantly more than standard options, and a high price tag is not always correlated with great flavor. There’s nothing worse than spending a pretty penny on a store-bought sauce only to have a tasteless or foul-tasting sauce.
The ingredients in this recipe are easy to find and inexpensive. Once you stock up on the main ingredients, you’ll be able to make many batches for whatever BBQ recipes you desire. Many processed foods are packed with preservatives and sodium, which is not beneficial to our health.
Benefits Of Diabetic BBQ Sauce
There are many benefits to low-sugar and sugar-free BBQ sauce. In addition to the diabetic-friendly ingredients, the fresh and natural foods used in this recipe offer other health benefits, as well. Let’s look at some of the benefits of making homemade diabetic BBQ sauce.
Balances Cholesterol Levels
This recipe incorporates tomato puree, as tomatoes are a significant ingredient in all BBQ sauces. Tomatoes contain high levels of lycopene. Lycopene prohibits fats from being stored in blood vessels which is often responsible for blood clots and heart attacks. The use of tomatoes in the BBQ recipe helps to keep cholesterol levels good and promotes heart health.
Aids In Weight Loss
Many condiments contain high levels of saturated fats (“bad” fats). These types of fat are usually the culprit behind unhealthful weight gain. BBQ sauce does not have saturated fats. This means you can enjoy the sauce without worrying about how it may be negatively impacting your weight loss efforts. The lycopene that supports balanced cholesterol also helps prevent unnecessary weight gain. Unintentional weight gain can lead to obesity, which tends to magnify negative effects of diabetes.
Reduces Blood Pressure
BBQ sauce also helps to support healthy blood pressure. The sauce is high in lycopene and potassium which are both helpful in improving the body’s vascular system. Opting for a healthful low-sugar BBQ sauce will help your blood sugar levels, and may help with your blood pressure, compared to many other condiments.
Tastes Great Without All The Sugar
All of the health benefits of low-sugar BBQ sauce are great. The fact that it tastes delicious makes all the health benefits even better. Gaining health and changing our diet is often a difficult transition. Using this homemade, easy, low-sugar diabetic-friendly BBQ sauce recipe will help make the transition a bit easier for you.
What You Need To Make Diabetic BBQ Sauce
These are all the ingredients you need to make diabetic BBQ sauce. Chances are, you have many of these items in your cabinets already. Each of these ingredients require small amounts, so you won’t have to be restocking them all the time. Having them readily available in your pantry will make it easy to whip up BBQ sauce whenever you need it.
Ingredients for Easy Diabetic BBQ Sauce:
- 1 cup sugar-free ketchup
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1.5 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp salt or salt-replacer
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 0.5 tsp Liquid Smoke (optional but ads a little smokey flavor)
- 2 tsp agave (optional–omit for sugar-free recipe)
- Cayenne Pepper to Taste (optional)
Quick and Easy Diabetic BBQ Sauce Recipe
Prep Time: >10 minutes
Cook Time: >10 minutes
This recipe is quick and easy. It only takes one pan so you won’t be left with a mountain of dishes to clean. The measurements in this recipe yield about 1 ¼ cups or 9 fl oz.
- Combine ketchup, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and Liquid Smoke into a medium heat pan. If you are doing a low-sugar option, add the agave syrup at this time.
- Mix thoroughly in the pan. Add the onion powder, salt, and minced garlic. Add the cayenne for a bit of kick at this time, as well.
- Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent clumps.
- Once boiling, bring the sauce down to a simmer and allow it to continue to heat for 5 minutes.
- Your Diabetic-Friendly BBQ is ready to go! Time to add it to whatever recipe you choose.
Nutrition Information
Serving Size: 1 Tablespoon
Servings Per Recipe: ~17
Calories: 7 per serving
Total Carbohydrate: 3g
Sugar: 0.5g
Dietary Fiber: 0.1g
Fat: 0g (saturated or trans included)
Protein: 0.1g
Sodium: 190 mg
Allergy Warning: Worcestershire contains fish and gluten
Meal Ideas For Homemade Easy Diabetic BBQ Sauce
There are so many options for BBQ sauce. Whatever you’re making for dinner can be made a bit more delicious with this easy sauce. Here are some great ideas for incorporating this healthful and diabetic-friendly sauce into your next meal without sacrificing your blood sugar.
Grilled Chicken
Grilled chicken is easy to make for a healthy dish. On its own, it tends to be a bit plain. Make a proper healthful meal that tastes great by slathering some of this low-sugar BBQ sauce onto your grilled chicken.
Chicken Wings
Make delicious glazed chicken wings with this BBQ sauce. Allow the wings to marinate in the BBQ sauce and top with more before throwing them in the oven for a great meal.
BBQ Ribs
BBQ ribs are a classic and delicious meal to indulge in. Make your ribs the same way you would with standard BBQ sauce without worrying about a negative impact on your blood sugar.
Slow-Cooker BBQ Baked Beans
Baked beans are a classic, satisfying meal packed with protein and fiber. Make them diabetic-friendly by using this easy homemade sauce instead.
BBQ Marinated Ribeye Steaks
Many sauces for steaks have far too much sugar for people with diabetes. Make a great low-sugar ribeye by marinating the steak in your homemade sauce.
Pulled Chicken
If you are steering away from pork and beef, chicken is a great healthful option. Make BBQ pulled chicken with this sauce for a tangy and flavorful meal.
Pulled Pork
Pulled pork sandwiches are delicious and satisfying. It’s easy to swap the standard BBQ pulled pork recipe with this great sauce so you can enjoy it guilt-free.
Final Thoughts
You can put this diabetic-friendly BBQ sauce on everything you’ve enjoyed in the past. Instead of having plain grilled chicken, you can take it to the next level with this flavorful, low-sugar sauce. The ingredients are easily accessible and inexpensive. Whipping the sauce up takes 15 minutes so you can make a delicious and healthful dinner in no time.
Thanks for stopping by my Dealing With Diabetes blog! My name is LeeAnna.
