This sauce is taken from Saveur, which ran it as “Eastern North Carolina Sauce” in its June/July 2011 barbecue issue — see the original recipe on saveur.com. The magazine’s own description is that in eastern North Carolina, a spiced vinegar sauce offsets the richness of pork. It is a thin, sharp, no-tomato sauce, and the recipe below is Saveur’s, not a variation of ours.
Ingredients (makes 2 cups)
- 1 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon crushed red chile flakes
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
Method
Saveur’s instructions are a single step: combine the two vinegars, sugar, chile flakes, hot sauce, salt, pepper and paprika in a storage container. There is no cooking involved.
Saveur does not give a resting time. For a comparable sauce, Meathead Goldwyn of AmazingRibs.com says to pour everything into a jar, shake it, and let it sit for at least 12 hours so the flavors meld. It is reasonable to give this recipe the same overnight rest, but that timing comes from AmazingRibs’ version, not from Saveur.
What Makes It “Eastern” North Carolina
Regional labels matter with Carolina sauces, so here is how the sources draw the lines:
- Eastern North Carolina: In an interview with John Shelton Reed, co-author of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, Our State reports that Eastern North Carolina kept to tradition while North Carolinians west of Raleigh began experimenting with different sauces and meats. AmazingRibs adds that in the eastern part of the state, whole hog is the cut of choice.
- Lexington or Piedmont style: Our State says this sauce still uses lots of vinegar but with a slight touch of ketchup that makes it sweeter and redder. It is not the sauce on this page, and Our State says the full-fledged Lexington (Piedmont) style originated during World War I.
- South Carolina: AmazingRibs publishes a separate mustard-based recipe called Columbia Gold for South Carolina. That is a different tradition again and is not covered here.
One wrinkle: AmazingRibs’ own vinegar recipe is titled “East Carolina” and describes vinegar sauce along the coasts of both North and South Carolina. Because that framing is broader than Eastern North Carolina, this article credits Saveur, whose recipe is explicitly Eastern North Carolina.
Three Published Versions Compared
Published Eastern North Carolina-style recipes agree on the basics of vinegar, pepper, salt and heat, but they differ noticeably in how much hot sauce and sugar they use:
- Saveur: 2 cups of mixed vinegars, 1 tablespoon each of sugar and hot sauce, plus 1 tablespoon chile flakes.
- AmazingRibs (Meathead Goldwyn): 1 1/2 cups distilled vinegar, 2 tablespoons sugar, only 1 teaspoon hot sauce, 2 teaspoons crushed red pepper and 2 teaspoons black pepper.
- America’s Test Kitchen: 1 1/2 cups cider vinegar with a full cup of hot sauce, 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar, and a simple whisk-together method that takes 10 minutes.
The spread shows how much room there is for adjusting heat and sweetness to taste. Because hot sauces vary by bottle, check the label on yours if you need to avoid a particular ingredient; this article makes no diet claims.
Using It as a Mop and a Finishing Sauce
AmazingRibs describes vinegar sauce of this kind as doing double duty: brushed on the meat as a “mop” during cooking, and served as a sauce afterwards. Meathead’s note on food safety is worth copying. If you use the sauce as a mop, the cup you dip the brush into can pick up raw meat juices, which is why he advises against dipping the brush into the whole bottle. Pour a few ounces into a separate cup, discard that contaminated portion when you are done, and serve the untouched sauce at the table. He also says his version keeps for months in the fridge; that claim is for his recipe, so treat the storage life of the Saveur version as unconfirmed and label the container with the date you made it.
Keep reading
- Vinegar, Mustard or Ketchup? The Real History Behind Carolina BBQ Sauces
- Columbia Gold: A South Carolina Mustard BBQ Sauce
- Francis Mallmann’s Chimichurri, as Published by Saveur
- Skylight Inn and Eastern NC Whole-Hog Barbecue History