I agree, the habanero or what used to be called Lauren’s Spicy Recipe, is the best Salt Lick sauce.
That recipe, see attached image, was actually a recipe inspired by the Salt Lick, it’s not the actual one as the owners refuse to share this recipe even to this day. However, this is pretty close to what I came up with and wish I had come across that during my attempt to recreate the sauce. But the biggest mistakes IMO is that they used ketchup for a known mustard base bbq sauce along with lemon and molasses. All three of those are not included in the sauce that I can say with almost 100% certainty.
Back in 2011, I spent some time to attempt to create a copycat version of the Salt Lick Lauren Spicy Recipe sauce. Unfortunately, the forum I had posted to went away and thus I thought lost as I didn’t save any of it.
Thanks to the Wayback Machine, here is the original post. It’s an interesting read, at least to me, on what I went through to decipher what is in their sauce.
Also, I put everything up on YouTube to save the original post along with including the recipe.
Copycat version of Salt Lick
Lauren’s Spicy Recipe Bar-B- Que Sauce
1 cup finished sweet and sour dressing (recipe below)
1/3 cup prepared mustard
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbs Vizcaya brand Habanero sauce (red NOT the orange)
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp black pepper (fresh cracked if possible)
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp Chinese 5 spice
1 Tbs Honey
1 Tbs brown sugar
Place sweet and sour dressing, mustard, Worcestershire, and all spices (from salt to Chinese 5 spice) in pan and simmer over medium-low heat for 10 minutes.
Take off of heat and add 1 Tbs of honey, 1 Tbs brown sugar, and 1 Tbs Habanero sauce. Stir until well incorporated.
Cool to room temperature then store in a squeeze bottle or any other container in the fridge.
Bring to room temperature before use.
Sweet and sour dressing
½ cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup brown sugar
6 oz Dole 100% pineapple juice
¼ tsp ginger
¼ tsp garlic
1 Tbs cornstarch
1 Tbs water
¼ cup oil
Place all ingredients, except cornstarch and water, into a pan over medium heat.
Allow mixture to simmer about 10 minutes.
While this simmers mix cornstarch and water in a small bowl.
Add this to the sweet and sour mixture and bring to a boil.
Remove from heat and allow to come to room temp. Put in sauce in blender and while running drizzle oil until dressing thickens.
