We Asked Southern Living Test Kitchen Pros Their Favorite BBQ Sauce—And This Was Their Pick

It's true that making your own Southern-style barbecue sauce is a great way to season and sweeten to personal taste, but nothing beats the ease and convenience of a good store-bought bottle of smoky, sticky, finger-lickin'-good barbecue sauce. Whether it's half-open in the refrigerator or tucked away in the pantry, having one—or several—ready to serve can make or break the occasion.

With the summer season, also affectionately known as barbecue season, in full swing, it's especially important to have backup bottles of BBQ sauce on hand. You never know when you might need to fire up the grill at a moment's notice, and no one knows this better than the Southern Living Test Kitchen.

So we asked our experts: What brand of store-bought barbecue sauce do you reach for? There was one clear answer. Whether they're glazing, dipping, or dunking, lovers of Texas-style BBQ will be pleased to hear their answer.

What Type Of Barbecue Sauce Is Best?

I intentionally asked our experts what they reach for when they're looking for an all-encompassing, all-purpose barbecue sauce—without specifications regarding style, use, or flavor profile. Our Recipe Developer and proud Austin native Jasmine Smith said it best about the winner, Stubb's BBQ Sauce:

"It's well balanced, it has a nice viscosity to coat whatever you’re putting it on, it’s a little peppery, and has a little tang," says Smith. "It’s exactly how I want my barbecue sauce to be. It’s also very consistent, so it’s good for adding into [involved] recipes, and it holds itself well."

And the rest of our Test Kitchen agrees, noting that Stubbs is best for its distinctively zingy, homemade flavor profile. Most importantly though, it's all of those things while still being widely accessible and not too fancy or pricey.

What Makes Stubb's Best?

According to our experts, Stubbs truly tastes like someone made it with love, by hand. It doesn't taste like it's been languishing in a bottle on a dusty shelf, but it's also consistent—just as it would be if an experienced, seasoned pitmaster bottled it up for you personally. It's not too precious, so it's a solid blank slate for building up a sauce on your own and crisp enough to be a delicious finishing dipping sauce on more casual occasions.

The story of Stubbs begins in Lubbock, Texas, where this Texas-style sauce gained popularity at the helm of pitmaster and founder C.B. Stubblefield. Its unique balance of sweetness and peppery tang quickly made Stubbs a household name across the South. Today, the sauce is widely accessible at most conventional stores, and it's still served at the Stubb's Bar-B-Q location in Austin, Texas.

Ways To Use Stubb's Barbecue Sauce

"Smoked ribs. The last time I used it in a recipe—if I’m making a glaze and it calls for barbecue sauce I’ll use [Stubb's] as a base and add my other ingredients to it." - Jasmine Smith

"I dip it: potatoes, proteins. Sometimes I put it on salads with ranch!" - Elizabeth Mervosh

"Fix ribs! Smoke them for a long time and intermittently slap ‘em with Stubb's, then hit ‘em with some high heat at the end—extra crispy!" - Craig Ruff

"For ribs, I like something sweet and sticky, like Stubb's, as a glaze." - Nicole Hopper

"It tastes balanced and has a really homemade flavor profile. It also coats the ingredients well without overwhelming them." - Renu Dhar

Second Place: Sweet Baby Ray's

While Stubb's was a clear favorite, Sweet Baby Ray's was also lauded for its consistency and versatility, with a slightly lower price point than Stubb's.

"It’s consistent," says recipe developer Amanda Stanfield. "You can mess with it, and it’s still going to be consistently very good." Stanfield opts for Sweet Baby Ray's for oven-baked ribs or dipping tenders, while Test Kitchen Assistant Amanda Holstein uses it to douse brisket sandwiches.

Stanfield also loves using Sweet Baby Ray's as a base for building her own sauce, playing around, and experimenting. "You can add a little jalapeño, maybe some cayenne, cook it down with some bourbon," she says. "You don’t spend that much, so I don’t mind using it for whatever."

Both Stubb's and Sweet Baby Ray's fall firmly in the camp of Texas-style barbecue sauce. Of course, you can go other directions, seeking the vinegary tang of Carolina-style barbecue sauce or the beloved Alabama white sauce, but both of these regional styles can be difficult to find at the store at a reasonable price, or outside of our Southern Living offices here in Birmingham, Alabama.