Black Garlic Is The Umami Powerhouse That Can Save Bland BBQ Sauce

Whether it's homemade or store-bought, you want your BBQ sauce to sing. Because of the sauce's relative complexity, many different flavors can be over- or under-represented in the final mix. In many cases, you can reach for black garlic to salvage your sauce. Black garlic is carefully aged and cured raw garlic. It's commonly described as sweet and sticky (molasses is a frequent comparison) with a deeply savory earthiness.

Like many aged and cured foods, black garlic has an intense, umami punch. This elusive flavor is the answer to a BBQ sauce that tastes "blah." Just a few cloves can pick things up considerably. In our ranking of the best and worst store-bought BBQ sauces, a common misstep among the bottom-tier offerings was an overabundance of vinegary flavors. The rich, savory taste of black garlic is a perfect band-aid for taming the vinegar's bite.

Since black garlic is already slightly softened from its aging process, you can simply stir it into any lackluster BBQ sauce. You will want to mince or pulverize the cloves first, though, to ensure they mix in smoothly and to avoid altering your sauce's texture by overmixing it.

Black garlic isn't a cure-all for bad BBQ sauce, and you need to be careful with how much you add. Quality BBQ sauce is all about balance, so consider what your sauce is specifically lacking before tossing cloves in.

As mentioned above, black garlic works great alongside strong vinegars or as an umami booster. However, if your sauce is too sweet, you might look for a different fix. Sweetness is one of the most prominent notes in black garlic, so the addition could just exacerbate the problem. And even though black garlic has a different, mellower taste than raw garlic, you still want to avoid this hack if your sauce tastes too strongly of garlic or onion — allium overload can squash everything else. This quieter bite also makes it an ill fix for BBQ sauce that isn't spicy enough.

Like other aged foods, black garlic is powerful, and many chefs recommend using only two or three cloves at a time to avoid overpowering your other flavors. Given the concentrated flavor of most BBQ sauces, you might want to be even more cautious and taste as you add one clove at a time. You can always pop more in if something still feels off.