Burgers Class

Nicholas Gavin is the Culinary Creative Director of ChefSteps, where he develops recipes and is responsible for making all the food look beautiful. Nick has worked at ChefSteps for over a decade; he and ChefSteps co-founder Grant Crilly worked together at Modernist Cuisine. Nick has worked in professional kitchens both in the United States and abroad, most notably at Mugaritz in San Sebastian, Spain.

Nicholas Gavin

In Texas, where beef barbecue is king, purists keep spice rubs simple and discourage dressing smoked brisket and the like with sauce. Proponents of this minimalist approach argue that any seasonings beyond salt and pepper are superfluous, and detract and distract from the flavors of the beef and smoke. In central Texas, many barbecue joints don’t even offer sauce. The pitmasters of East Texas are more permissive about the use of sauce on their ’cue, but they make sure to keep the flavors simple and balanced in order to complement the richness of the beef, rather than mask it.In keeping with that tradition, we’ve developed a sweet and sticky all-purpose barbecue sauce that can be used for mopping beef as it smokes—a technique that some folks favor for improving the texture of bark while deepening its color—or as an accompaniment for serving alongside brisket, short ribs, and more. It’s the full package: tangy, savory, and sweet, with just a hint of heat on the finish. NOTE: This recipe is an updated version of our previously published Sweet and Sticky BBQ Glaze. After years of feedback and further testing, we redeveloped the recipe, omitting the whiskey from the original, adding brown sugar and additional spices to bring the flavors into balance, and lightly simmering the sauce. We’re confident you’ll love the results.

Sweet and Sticky Barbecue Sauce