Mop Sauce (Mopping Sauce; Moppin’ Sauce)

Mop sauce (also “mopping sauce” or “moppin’ sauce”) is also known as basting sauce. It’s “mopped” on to barbecue while the food is turned. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s barbecue master, Walter Jetton (1906-1968), popularized “mop sauce” in a 1965 book on Texas barbecue, but Jetton didn’t invent “mop.”
 
The mop sauce often contains ingredients such as beef stock, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, dry mustard, black pepper, and salt. Mop sauce is sometimes followed in the last few minutes of cooking or on the dinner table with a slightly heavier (with more sugars and ketchup) soppin’ sauce.
   
   
About.com: Barbecues & Grilling
Mop from Derrick Riches
The baste of Barbecue
When President Johnson threw a barbecue he called upon is favorite Pitmaster Walter Jetton to cook up a meal that often feed hundreds of people. This meal would be cooked on an open air fire pit that measured about 40 square feet. Walter would cover every square inch of this surface in ribs, roasts and meats of every variety. To keep the meat moist he mopped it, with a real mop. Hence the barbecue term, “mop”.
 
Today you can buy a miniature tool that looks like a kitchen mop to mop your meat. The cotton fibers hold the thin mop sauce and make it easy to dash large amounts on at once. But a mop isn’t just another kind of barbecue sauce. It is a thin, watery solution that drips over meat adding moisture to combat the drying of an open fire. Think of it this way; a sauce is applied with a brush, like a paint brush.   
 
A mop, sometimes called a sop, is applied with, well a mop. Sauces are thicker than mops. Mops should have a consistency close to water.
   
Food Network
Austin, Texas Style Mop Sauce Recipe courtesy Captain Shawn Newsom
Show:  FoodNation With Bobby Flay
Episode:  Austin (Texas) 
   
During a barbecue, venison or game should be mopped with a real Texas Style Mop Sauce.
 
2 cans (12 ounces) beer, no malt liquors or dark beers
6 ounces yellow mustard
8 ounces Worcestershire sauce
12 ounces hickory-flavored barbecue sauce
4 ounces honey
Pinch hot chile flakes
4 ounces wine vinegar
1 white onion chopped
2 lemons, sliced
 
Mix all the above ingredients in a pan and cook at medium heat for 30 minutes. This will be the sauce that is mopped on every few minutes during cooking.
 
Cooks.com
TEXAS MOP SAUCE  
1/2 c. tomato sauce
1 c. strong black coffee
1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. salt
1/2 c. butter
 
Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer just until butter is melted. Use as a marinade for any meat. (It’s especially good for flank steak) or brush on meat as a BBQ sauce.
 
Cooks.com
TEXAS MOP BBQ BASTE  
2 c. beef stock
1 1/2 tsp. powdered mustard
1/3 c. apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp. Tabasco
Black pepper
1 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
1/3 c. oil
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. paprika
Crushed red pepper (to taste)
 
Mix all ingredients together. Baste meat every 20 minutes. Great on pork!
 
About.com: Barbecues & Grilling
Texas Hillbilly Mop Sauce
From Paul Williams
Paul Williams sent me this fantastic mop recipe that works well on beef and pretty much anything else. This mop has no sugar so you don’t have to worry about it burning.
 
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups vinegar
1 cup olive oil
2/3 cup worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup water
2 lemons, pulped and cut in half
2 tablespoons hot sauce
6 bay leaves, crushed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon chili powder
 
PREPARATION:
Place all ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, but keep warm. Mop every hour.
     
Free Cooking Recipes
Name: Texas Mopping Sauce For Barbecue
Category: Sauces
 
Ingredients and Directions
1 c Strong black coffee
1 c Tomato catsup
1 tb Freshly ground black pepper
1 tb Salt
1/2 c Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c Butter or margerine
1 tb Sugar
 
Combine all ingredients and simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Store in a tightly covered jar in refrigerator. Heat before using. For ribs, I dunk the ribs in the sauce each time I turn them. This sauce is very spicy and some people think it’s too strong for poultry; I disagree. The coarser the pepper is ground, the better it is. Warning: if this is used on country style pork ribs it will make you throw rocks at steak!
 
The BBQ Report
Recipe: Dr. Pepper Mop Sauce
 
Here’s a sweet mop sauce good for basting ribs or brisket.
 
The Dr. Pepper adds a touch of sweetness and that mystic something that only Dr. Pepper has that you just can’t put your finger on. The oil adds some stick-um power. Don’t worry, the taste isn’t so obvious that anyone will guess your secret.
 
Ingredients
3 cups of Dr. Pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Mix well with a whisk, heat and baste while warm. 
 
Associated Content: The People’s Media Company
Perfect Texas Style BBQ Ribs Part 1 Moppin’ Sauce (Video)
     
29 March 1959, Corpus Christi (TX) Caller-Times, pg. 41F, col. 1:
COWBOY BARBECUE SAUCE
1/4 pound fat bacon chopped fine
1/2 pound butter
1/34 stalk celery including tops cut fine
2 large white onions chopped fine
1/2 gallon catsup-4 bottles
1 large bottle Worcestershire sauce
1/2 dozen lemons
4 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons black pepper
2 tablespoons chile powder
1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce
2 tablespoons dry mustard
3 cloves garlic
 
Fry bacon, add onions and cook until onions are transparent. Boil garlic in 1 cup of water and add garlic water only to celery, catsup and spices.
Combine all ingredients and let simmer 1 hour.
   
For mop sauce:
2 cups above sauce
2 cups water
2 cups cooking oil
1 cup vinegar
 
Mop this sauce on meat before and after each turning.—Ralph M. Coble, 3559 Lawnview.
 
6 June 1965, Syracuse (NY) Herald-American, “The LBJ Barbecue Cook Book” by Walter Jetton with Arthur Whitman,  This Week magazine, pg. 10, col. 4:
MOP FOR ALL BARBECUE MEATS
Use this to rub over meats or to baste them while they are cooking. Put it on with a little dish mop of the kind that you see in the dime store. As you use it, the flavor will change and improve, for you are constantly transferring smoke and grease from the meat back to the mop concoction. If you have any left over, keep it in the refrigerator.
 
4 quarts bone stock
3 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons dry mustard
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon ground bay leaf
2 tablespoons chili powder
3 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce
2 pints Worcestershire sauce
1 pint vinegar
1 pint oil
3 tablespoons monosodium glutamate
 
Make the bone stock just the way you would start a soup—buy good stout beef bones from the butcher and boil them. Add all the other ingredients and let stand overnight before using. About 6 quarts.
 
(Pg. 11, cols. 1-2—ed.)
TEXAS BEEF BARBECUE
This is made out of beef brisket, which is one of the tastiest cuts but the least thought of by the average housewife, unless she buys it as corned beef. It starts out pretty tough, but if you nurse it right, it’s delicious.
 
3 bay leaves
Salt and pepper
2 quarts bone stock
6 pounds beef brisket
Mop Sauce
 
Put the bay leaves in about a cup of water and bring to a boil. Let is simmer 10 minutes or so, then remove the leaves and add the bay tea to the bone stock, along with the salt and pepper. Put the brisket in your Dutch oven and add the stock mixture to cover it about a quarter of the way. Cover and cook over the fire, turning the brisket about every half hour until it’s nearly done. (This can be determined by forking.) Mop it and lay it on the grill to finish cooking, being sure to turn it and to mop it every 20 minutes or so. To make a good natural gravy, add a little Worcestershire sauce and maybe a dash of chili powder to the liquid you cooked the brisket in. You can also serve this with Barbecue Sauce.
(...)
Recipes above are samples of the 97 contained in the new “Walter Jetton’s LBJ Barbecue Cook Book,” just published by THIS WEEK Magazine in association with Pocket Books.
 
29 January 1966, Pasadena (CA) Independent, “LBJ’s Favorite Cook Advises His New Chef” by J. F. Ter Horst, pg. 7, col. 5:
JETTON SAYS the secret to LBJ Ranch barbecue beef is the special “mop” sauce he’s concocted for basting the meat. It’s a blend of assorted seasonings, most of them spicy, that is applied “with a little dish mop of the kind you see in the dime store.” 
 
12 August 1970, Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT), pg. 11, col. 4:
And with the guests nibbling, the host has a chance to give some of his attention to peppering the steak or mopping sauce on the spareribs. 
 
27 June 1972, Syracuse (NY) Herald-Journal, “Tantalize with ‘mop sauce,’’ pg. 21, col. 6:
Know what a mop sauce is?
 
It’s not a household cleaning product but in Texas where everything is done on a giant scale, “mop sauce” is a barbecue sauce. Generally a mop sauce is thick and clings well to the meat.
(Same recipe as September 14, 1972 article below—ed.)
 
23 July 1972, Long Beach (CA) Independent, Press-Telegram, pg. W2, col. 2:
Use turned out to be a Texas style barbecue co-hosted by the Wigods and Mintzes.
   
Bill Mintz dug the 12-foot barbecue pit and if you think that is a mop his wife, Jean, is holding in her hand in the accompanying picture, you are absolutely right.
   
In this case, the mop became a cooking tool for basting 146 pounds of beef with President Johnson’s Mopping Sauce, a recipe gleaned from the pages of the I,P-T Food Section.
 
17 August 1972, Dallas (TX) Morning News, “Jetton barbecues anything, but especially ribs” by Marian Burros, section E, pg. 7:
MOP FOR ALL BARBECUE MEATS
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 small bay leaf
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 tablespoon hot pepper sauce
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup vinegar
2 cups beef stock or bouillon
1/4 cup salad oil
 
Combine all the ingredients and let stand in refrigerator overnight before using as basting. Cook slabs of spareribs as far from the fire as possible. Baste frequently and turn often. It should take the ribs 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes to cook over a gray ash fire.
 
Allow one pound ribs per person.
 
14 September 1972, Dallas (TX) Morning News, section E, pg. 14:
Mop sauce started
right here in Texas
 
Do you know what a “mop sauce” is?
 
The name is popping up frequently these days in barbecue recipes. It comes from here in Texas where king-sized barbecuing calls for literally using a mop to baste the side of beef. But in recipes a “mop sauce” simply means one which is thick and clings well to the meat, i. e. a good basting sauce.
(...)
SPICED PLUM MOP SAUCE
2 tablespoons instant minced onion
1/4 teaspoon instant minced garlic
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 can (17 ounces) purple plums, drained and pitted
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon anise seed, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
 
Rehydrate onion and garlic in water for 10 minutes. In a medium saucepan melt butter. Add onion and garlic; saute for 5 minutes. Crush plums. Add plums to saucepan along with lemon juice, soy sauce, ginger, anise seed, salt and white pepper.
 
Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes or until sauce is thickened. Use as a glaze for pork chops, roast pork, duckling, chicken, etc. Yields two cups.
   
28 June 1973, San Antonio (TX) Express, “Hawaiian Patties,” pg. 3F photo caption:
Good enough for any luau, these delicious hamburgers are brushed with a spicy pineapple. This unique approach to barbecue depends on the “mop” sauce to heighten flavor and aroma and to hold natural meat juices.
 
25 February 1974, Baytown (TX) Sun, pg. 8, col. 5:
BARBECUED RABBIT
Special Sauce:
1 pint vinegar
1/4 cup worchestershire sauce
2 tsp. red pepper
4 tbsp. salt
1/4 stick margarine
Boil. This is the mopping sauce.
 
19 August 1975, Dallas (TX) Morning News, “Tolbert’s Texas” by Frank X. Tolbert, section D, pg. 3:
The Abilene folks have sent me a first edition of a booklet called Cowboy Campfire Cook Book, containing recipes by some of the great contemporary chuck wagon cooks, including those of the 1974 winner of the cookoff’s professional division, Clifford Teinart of Albany.
 
I was interested especially in Mr. Teinart’s formula for a barbecue “mop sauce.” This calls for one part cooking oil, one part vinegar, two parts water, one onion sliced, one lemon sliced, one tablespoon salt, one tablespoon black pepper. You combine and simmer for 20 minutes. Mop the sauce on the meat each time it is turned.
 
21 August 1975, Dallas (TX) Morning News, “Mr. Bolt’s Recipe for Barbecue Sauce” by Frank X. Tolbert, section D, pg. 3:
Mr. Shaw had two sauces. One was for mopping the meat at every turn while it was over the mesquite roots coals. The other was for sopping on the meat after it was done.
 
Mr. Shaw’s mop sauce consisted of butter, vinegar, water, lots of black pepper, thin-sliced onion and lemon and, of course, some salt.
 
28 September 1977, Baytown (TX) Sun, pg.  7A, col. 2:
OLD SMOKEY MOPPING SAUCE FOR BARBEQUE
Mix juice of 1 lemon, 2 tsp. flour, 1 tsp. pepper, 2 tsp. mustard, 1 clove garlic, 1/2 tsp. sugar and 1/2 tsp. salt in a measuring cup and fill to 1 cup line with distilled vinegar.
 
Melt 2 sticks butter in a pot and add mixture and cook until thick, about 3 minutes.
         
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From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). (Mike Roberts)
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 15:17:20 GMT
Local: Mon, Jun 6 1994 11:17 am
Subject: Re: Got a Smoker..What do i do?
 
Texas BBQ Mop Sauce
 
1/4 cup Lemon Juice
1 cup Apple cider or Wine Vinegar ( I like red wine vinegar)
1/3 cup Worchestershire sauce
1/2 cup oil (use if you are using this as a mop sauce only, you don’t need it for steaming)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic pwr
1 tsp chili pwr
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/12 tsp hot pepper
1/2 tsp ground bay leaf  
 
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From: Pinkney Mikell