Alabama White Sauce BBQ Chicken Recipe
The person behind Alabama White BBQ Sauce is Robert Lee Gibson, better known as "Big Bob" Gibson — a name he earned from his size, reportedly standing 6'4" and weighing around 300 pounds.
Gibson left his job on the railroad to open a barbecue business in Decatur, Alabama, in 1925. He specialized in smoking pork and chicken in hickory-fired brick pits, and while his food and famously charismatic personality drew crowds, it was his tangy, peppery white sauce that made him legendary.
The sauce is mayonnaise-based — a combination of mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, black pepper, and salt — and was originally made for his smoked chicken.
The classic technique, still used today, is to dunk whole smoked chickens into a vat of the sauce right off the pit.
White sauce distinguishes north Alabama 'cue in the same way that thin tomato-vinegar sauces do in the eastern Carolinas, mustard-based sauces in parts of South Carolina, and the thick and spicy sauces of Kansas City.
The chicken is smoked first, then dipped. White sauce is a finishing sauce, not a cooking or basting sauce.
Butterfly your chicken.
Rub it all over with a dry rub - make your own or find one you like.
Smoke the chicken to temp 165°F and get a crispy skin - about 3.5 hours
In the meantime make the White sauce
Whisk together the mayonnaise (2 parts), vinegar (1 part), black pepper (1 to 2 teaspoons), in a medium bowl.
and if you desire add
horseradish, mustard, muscovado sugar, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, salt, and cayenne
Reserve ¼ cup of the sauce for brushing the chicken; cover and refrigerate the remaining sauce for serving.
Dunk the whole chicken in the sauce and fully dredge it and put it on a serving platter, cover loosely and let rest for 10 minutes.
Transfer the chicken to a platter, cover with foil and let rest for at least 10 minutes.
Serve with the remaining white sauce.
