I found a new barbecue sauce the other day, Carolina Gold, and liked it enough that I wanted to share it with you guys! This is a Trader Joe’s exclusive product that is worth a special trip to pick up a bottle!
What’s In The Sauce?
When I looked at the ingredients for this sauce I thought that there was no way it could be any good since the primary ingredient is sugar. One one hand I was glad that they are using cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup but I couldn’t help but think hat the sauce was going to be sticky sweet.
Given the sugar content, it isn’t surprising that the sauce has 60 calories per serving and 14 grams of carbohydrates. This sauce is not keto friendly.
Is the Carolina Gold BBQ Sauce Any Good?
It turns out that Trader Joe’s did a great job of balancing out the sweet with mustard, vinegar and tomatoes. They also made the sauce have two tones of sweetness with the other note coming from molasses.
Somewhere in the mix you get a great little punch of heat that is just enough to make your mouth tingle! I couldn’t find anything in the ingredients list to indicate where the heat comes from but it must be included with their generic term of “spices”.
I read a review that said this sauce tastes like the magically delicious honey mustard sauce you get at White Castle and I think the statement is pretty spot on!
My first try with this sauce was on some simple grilled chicken tenderloins and it was awesome! The chicken was pretty bland but I ended up eating all of it just so I could use it to scoop up more of the sauce.
As good as this sauce is on chicken it is twice as good when used as a dipping sauce for French fries!
The next things I am going to try are using it to make a funky coleslaw to serve on a pulled pork sandwich. That will have to be spectacular, right?
Think of this sauce as a slightly kicked up version of an amazing Honey Mustard sauce.
Reviews of Carolina Gold From Amazon
I was curious if other folks liked this sauce as much as I did since mustard can taste really different for some people.
I headed over to Amazon where people are selling this stuff at a pretty high markup and it looks like folks like this sauce as much as I do! 90% of all customer reviews are either 5 or 4 Stars. The few bad reviews were people receiving broken bottles which has nothing to do with the sauce itself.
If you are looking for a great new barbecue sauce to try then head down to Trader Joe’s and pick up a bottle of Carolina Gold!