What's in a Rub?

Proper Texas BBQ brisket requires a good meat rub, and similar rubs are used in many BBQ applications. Meat rubs are, essentially, dry marinades and are used to impart interesting flavor and colors to your barbecued meat.

Dr. BBQ has a basic meat rub that you can use on beef, pork, chicken, or anything else you want to barbecue in the classic fashion. Mix together about three parts sugar to two parts salt, with onion and/or garlic powder, chili powder, or other dried herbs added to taste. (Proportions, of course, are approximate. This is BBQ we’re talking about, after all.) Rub a generous portion of the mixture over whatever you intend to BBQ and go to it.

If you want to rub down a steak or some chops or anything else intended for direct grilling (vs. classic barbecuing), cut down or eliminate the sugar in your rub as it will burn easily over the charcoal fire.

Julia Weighs In

We wouldn’t normally invite a real French chef into a manly BBQ discussion, but Julia Child has a great meat rub that brings a remarkable flavor to pork prepared in any way, including on the grill. She mixes a lot of ground pepper with an assortment of the dark brown spice powders: clove, mace, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. To this she adds ground bay leaf, some paprika for color, and thyme.

You can also add salt, cumin, or sage and get equally good results. (Precise quantities of these various ingredients are pointless.) Rub the resulting powder on pork chops or a pork roast; let them sit for anywhere from an hour to overnight; then cook as you wish. Very tasty indeed!

How it Works

Whatever rub you settle on, apply liberally before you start grilling and work the rub into the surface of the meat. If time allows, let your meat warm to room temperature before you rub it down -- it’ll be more receptive. Also let the rubbed meat sit a spell before you start cooking so the flavors can penetrate.

Here are some meat rubs you can play around with, snagged off the Food Channel.

Bobby Flay’s Grilled Steak Rub

Combine the following ingredients and rub into your steak before grilling:

• 1 cup ancho chile powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon dried coriander
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Alton Brown’s Baby Back Rib Rub

Combine:

• 8 parts light brown sugar
• 3 parts kosher salt
• 1 part chili powder
• 1 part of the following in any combination you wish:
  

• ground black pepper
• cayenne pepper
• jalapeno seasoning
• Old Bay Seasoning
• rubbed thyme
• onion powder

Although this is Alton’s rub for ribs, it also brings a nice flavor to chicken. But note: the high sugar content of this rub makes it very easy to burn the surface of the meat, so be attentive while your meat is grilling, turn the meat often, and keep the meat on the coolest part of the grill.

As is obvious, quantities and even ingredients of meat rubs vary dramatically from one recipe to the next, an open invitation to do pretty much whatever you wish. There are also plenty of commercial rubs available and all of them pretty much do the trick, even Emeril’s Essence, which is pricy but very flavorful.

Got a great rub recipe? Share it here.

See also:

• Buying A Grill
• Charcoal or Gas?
• History of BBQ
• Recipes
• Sauces
• Smokin'
• Styles of BBQ
• What is BBQ?