If you have a homemade sauce that you love, you can absolutely use that instead of store-bought barbecue sauce. Just don't forget to add the chili sauce to it for a little bit of heat to balance the sweetness of barbecue sauce. If you have a favorite BBQ sauce, you could use that instead too. The hickory and brown sugar barbecue sauce gives a great sweet and smoky balance to the heat added with the chili sauce. So, you could choose a different one, but the balance of your sauce might be off.