The precise origins of barbecue sauce are unclear, but most people believe that it dates back to the 17th century and the first American colonies. One of the first known recipes for barbecue sauce from the early 1900s calls for butter, water, mustard, tabasco sauce, cayenne, parsley, tomato catsup, vinegar, lemon juice, onion salt, and tomato sauce.

In the United States, barbecue sauce is mostly associated with the South, and especially South Carolina, where the sauce is divided into four basic types based on the key ingredients: mustard, vinegar and pepper, light tomato, and heavy tomato. Over time, the sauces made with tomatoes as the primary ingredient dispersed throughout the country, most notably in Kansas City, Memphis, and St. Louis.

The first commercially produced barbecue sauce was made in 1923 by the Louis Maull Co., while the first nationally distributed sauce was made by Heinz in 1951. Nowadays, there's a huge variety of barbecue sauces, and it's usually used as a marinade, a flavoring sauce, condiment, meat topping, or it's used for basting the meat as it cooks.