Alabama White Barbecue Sauce | Sauced

Of all the distinct barbecue sauce varieties—vinegar, sweet, spicy, mustard, fruity—white sauce takes the cake as most unique.

A staple of Northern Alabama barbecue, this sauce is primarily a mixture of mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, and pepper. It was invented by Robert Gibson at Big Bob Gibson's Bar-B-Q in Decatur, AL, where freshly smoked chickens are pulled from the pit and then "baptized" in a pool of the sauce.

On the surface, the idea of a tangy hot mayonnaise may not strike the mouthwatering response of its tomato-based brethren, but one taste and I'm sure you'll be sold.

Unlike other sauces that merely sit on top of chicken skin, the dunk or baste of white sauce permeates the meat and adds a rich tang that's present in almost every bite. It injects so much flavor into the finished chicken that a recent head-to-head between red and white sauce I had going left the white as the hands-down winner.