Smoky Chicken Spice Rub
- Aug 7, 2016
- 2 min read
Photograph by THINKSTOCK
Yesterday my father-in-law came over to help my husband hang our German cuckoo clock. My husband had gone grocery shopping the day before and got some chicken to make the FIXATE Mac & Cheese. I had done some meal prep by cooking taco meat and fajita veggies but those were supposed to be for him to take to work. We were all pretty hungry, so I thought maybe we could grill up the chicken...but we hadn't marinated any of it! And plain chicken on the grill is pretty underwhelming.
Sooooo, I looked up a dry rub recipe and found one that was SO GOOD. We mixed it up, put the chicken in freezer bags and tossed them around with the rub to coat, my husband grilled them, and we all enjoyed! Normally, I prefer marinades over dry rubs because the dry rub can make the chicken dry but not this one (although my husband will definitely credit his grill master skills..haha)
The rub was salty, smoky, and had just the perfect amount of heat on the end. The chicken stayed juicy and the rub even got a little thick where the chicken juices caramelized it. Definitely one of the best rubs I have ever had. Apparently, the recipe for the rub was created by the founder of the famous Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse, NY, John Stage.
Here's the recipe:
2 Tbsp smoked paprika
2 Tbsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp sugar in the raw (we didn't have this so I used light brown sugar instead)
1 Tbsp chili powder
2 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp celery salt (we didn't have this on hand, so we omitted it)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
Makes about 1/2 cup
We had 5 large chicken breasts, so I used 1.5x the recipe and it was the perfect amount. We ate 3 of the breasts yesterday and I just had one for lunch and I might dare to say that it's even better leftover!
YUM!
Check out the original article on Men's Health for a few other rubs including a Middle Eastern rub, a mocha brown sugar rub, an autumn spice rub, and a creole rub.
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