My Aunt Marlyn's Psycho BBQ Sauce Recipe

When I was a kid, my mother made almost everything from scratch, including barbecue sauce. I grew up eating this barbecue sauce, and to my taste buds, no other sauce is as good as this recipe. The recipe came from my Aunt Marlyn, and it's a combination of sweet, savory, and tangy all at once. And yes, in my family, we call it Psycho Sauce. I just made a mess of pork ribs the other night with this, and it was heaven. This sauce is really easy to make!

My Aunt Marlyn's Psycho BBQ Sauce Recipe

This recipe fills a Mason jar. Can be used on ribs, steaks, burgers, chicken, etc. This sauce keeps in the fridge for a long time.

Ingredients:
3 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons dry mustard
3 teaspoons chili powder
3 teaspoons paprika
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons catsup
6 tablespoons cider vinegar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon water

Preparation:
In a saucepan, combine the 5 dry ingredients. Blend in the catsup until smooth - this helps to smooth out the dry mustard so it doesn't float when the liquids are added. Blend in the remaining ingredients.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, and then reduce to a simmer and stir until thickened, about 10 minutes.

(Image: Kathryn Hill)

Comments (20)

YUM! Big Bob's BBQ rib sauce is a staple in our house. My city is home to the original Big Bob's & they've earned many awards.

http://www.bigbobgibsonbbq.com/main.htm

Thanks for the recipe. I think a jar of this would be a nice little gift for my dad, BBQer Extraordinaire. :)

How would this turn out with less oil?

I mix it pretty much like this but never thought about cooking it first.

Hi. I'm in Australia where we don't have anything called 'catsup'. Is it the same as ketchup, which I believe is what we called tomato sauce (the stuff you put on burgers and hot dogs)?

catsup = ketchup
tomAto = tomato
:)

i just made this & i can attest that it's some kinda good! used melinda's habanero ketchup instead of the plain stuff, and substituted 2 tbsp of tabasco steak sauce for the last bit of worcestershire. yes. i do like it hot ; )

also, i thought the measurements were a little awkward so i googled to find out that 4 tbsp = 1/4 cup, and used 1/4 cup 2 tbsp for the 6 tablespoon measures. less counting, i guess.

i'm getting some wings tomorrow & marinating them overnight before baking them on sunday. should have doubled the recipe, as it only filled about 2/3 of a recycled classico spaghetti sauce jar. and i already know i'm going to want more.

thanks!

whoops! that should read 1/4 cup PLUS 2 tbsp for the 6 tablespoon measures. sorry.

oh ... and i also cut the vegetable oil to 1/4 cup (only because i was too lazy to open another bottle). didn't seem to hurt it in the least.

Thanks for sharing this...I tried the recipe and love the flavor, but the oil never really mixed in well and the texture is a little gritty...what am I doing wrong?

@jagmqt did you heat it up and stir while cooking? How long did you cook for?

Mason jars come in various sizes (1 cup, 1 pint, 1 quart, etc.), so rather than giving the volume in "Mason jars" (not a regular unit of measure), it would be nice to have the volume in a more standard measure.

3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon. Why give the measure in teaspoons?

jagmqt: i blended all the dry ingredients, including making sure the mustard was schmooshed so it wouldn't rise when the liquid was added (per the original instructions). then i added the ketchup & stirred it again until smooth before adding the rest of the stuff & brought it up to a boil, stirring the whole time. once the boil started, i stirred it every few minutes, but not constantly. also, the oil separated to the top when i bottled it, but i just shook it up before marinating the wings.

mine turned out big time yum!

and thanks for the conversion, leisureguy. all those teaspoons/tablespoons do get a little taxing. but the sauce is great!

@ Kathryn & loislane...

I did what loislane did, and had the same problem with the oil separation...

I think I can work out the "gritty" texture, I'm more curious about the oil.

Could I cut back the amount, or is there a type of vegetable oil that will work better than others?

Thanks for the help, and the suggestions...I really like this flavor, I just want to get the recipe made correctly.

I didn't have a problem with a grainy texture or the oil separating, but it did take *forever* for mine to thicken. Eventually, I stopped cooking even though it never really thickened up as much as I would have liked. I decreased the amount of oil in the recipe, so maybe that had something to do with it. This is the first BBQ sauce recipe I've come across, but it's still not quite what I think of when I think BBQ.