diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 08ad6b8..97461f6 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -77,6 +77,8 @@ TARGETS += ot-recorder ocat
 GIT_VERSION := $(shell git describe --long --abbrev=10 --dirty --tags 2>/dev/null || echo "tarball")
 CFLAGS += -DGIT_VERSION=\"$(GIT_VERSION)\"
 
+PKG_CONFIG ?= pkg-config
+
 all: $(TARGETS)
 
 ot-recorder: recorder.o $(OTR_OBJS) $(OTR_EXTRA_OBJS)
diff --git a/config.mk.in b/config.mk.in
index 6fd674d..1243b69 100644
--- a/config.mk.in
+++ b/config.mk.in
@@ -105,8 +105,8 @@ GEOCODE_TIMEOUT = 4000
 # and in particular could require you to add the lua+version (e.g lua-5.2)
 # to both pkg-config invocations
 
-LUA_CFLAGS = `pkg-config --cflags lua`
-LUA_LIBS   = `pkg-config --libs lua`
+LUA_CFLAGS = `$(PKG_CONFIG) --cflags lua`
+LUA_LIBS   = `$(PKG_CONFIG) --libs lua`
 
-SODIUM_CFLAGS = `pkg-config --cflags libsodium`
-SODIUM_LIBS   = `pkg-config --libs libsodium`
+SODIUM_CFLAGS = `$(PKG_CONFIG) --cflags libsodium`
+SODIUM_LIBS   = `$(PKG_CONFIG) --libs libsodium`