Cooking with cola or root beer is common, so we figured why not cook with Dr Pepper? Using soda as the base for a barbecue sauce does two things right off the bat: You get sugar and you get acid. You can literally make a glaze out of nothing more than soda. We went a little further with this recipe, making it a full-on BBQ sauce. If you don’t like Dr Pepper, you can substitute another dark soda; I’d recommend root beer. And you don’t technically need to put the sauce in the blender, but it does make a smoother sauce that goes on meats better. What to use this sauce with? We first did it with slow-cooked pork country ribs, but you could also use it on regular ribs, pork shoulder, ham, beef ribs, or brisket. I bet it would be good on chicken, too, although we haven’t tried it. You do need to cook this sauce down to get the full flavor, so give yourself some time. Once it’s done, you can store the sauce in the fridge for at least a week. The sauce will store for several weeks in the fridge.
