This copycat Tony Roma’s Blue Ridge Smokies sauce is fantastic. It has some of your ‘standard’ BBQ sauce ingredients, such as ketchup and liquid smoke. That’s not what made it so special to me. It’s the red wine vinegar. The vinegar really adds a nice edge to the sauce. It’s like a nice combination of a KC BBQ sauce with a little North Carolina vinegar-based sauce. This is a great finger-licking sauce that screams ‘put me on a rack of smoked ribs’. So that’s what I did!
My first experience at Tony Roma’s was in Salt Lake City, Utah, many, many years ago. I instantly fell in love with their ribs. Ribs, ribs, ribs. Tony Roma’s started my love of ribs and I now make them often at home on my own smoker. I rubbed a rack of ribs down with a copycat Famous Dave’s rib rub, let it get happy overnight, then tossed the ribs onto my Weber Smokey Mountain smoker for 6 hours. I then slathered on some copycat Tony Roma’s Blue Ridge Smokies sauce. The end result was tender, tasty, and finger-licking amazing.
If you don’t like liquid smoke, substitute smoked salt and leave out the Kosher salt instead.
Copycat Tony Roma’s Blue Ridge Smokies Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1 cup red wine vinegar
- ½ cup brown sugar I substituted Sugar in the Raw
- ¼ cup molasses
- 1 ½ teaspoon liquid smoke
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Bring to a boil while stirring constantly.
- Reduce heat to a simmer and simmer, stirring often, for 30 minutes or until desired consistency is achieved.
- Sauce gets better when refrigerated overnight. Warm slightly before using.
Nutrition
Nutritional values are approximate.
