How To Turn French Dressing Into A Mouth-Watering BBQ Sauce

We're all about making do with what you have in the kitchen, and crafting delicious food. If you have French dressing you aren't using, you can transform it fairly easily into delicious BBQ sauce to use for marinating or dipping — and you probably already have most of the required ingredients. Everyone has their preferred BBQ sauce — even celebrity chef Bobby Flay has expressed his love for the (store-bought!) Bone Suckin' BBQ sauce. And, yet, with some humble French dressing, which you may not appreciate for salads, you can make a versatile sauce that tastes homemade and absolutely bangin'.

Feeling skeptical? Don't be. We've seen some bougie BBQ sauces that actually list French dressing as a fundamental ingredient, so this hack is nothing new. For your French dressing to make the transition, you are going to add onion, chili powder, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar to amp up the flavors already in the condiment. Blend it up until smooth and silky, and bam! A BBQ sauce that tastes downright succulent on grilled meats or when dipped with chicken tendies. 

There's a reason why so many BBQ bosses, from roadside smokers to celebrity chefs, closely guard their "secret" BBQ sauce. The perfect sauce is a point of pride, often passed down between generations. The French dressing BBQ sauce hack encourages you to play with ratios and put the finishing touches on your own signature sauce. Do you go with a sweet Vidalia onion, or a sharp white one? Do you maybe sub your additional Worcestershire 50/50 for soy sauce for a little bit of extra funk and sweetness? Maybe you'll find your secret ingredient to upgrade homemade BBQ sauce (one of ours is root beer). 

We've even found success adding chocolate to BBQ sauce. The only way to nail down your ideal sauce is to try and try again. Once you've established the flavor notes of essential BBQ sauce (a little sweet, a little sour, a little umami), you will really feel confident in playing around with different elements that can deliver on the components you want. We love that French dressing gets you most of the way there right off the bat, so that you are free to tweak add-ins and really try new things.