Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning on Ribs...

this post is from The Hungry Southerner Blog.
you can find it HERE.

Southern Kitchen – The Great Cajun Dry Rub Experiment

Summer time means grilling season. It’s always a great feeling to spend the night before a big grill-out prepping ribs. Aside from pulled pork, Ribs are by far my favorite part of the pig. The debatable secret to great Southern ribs is the fairy dust known as dry rub. Next to home made BBQ sauce, it’s a BBQ chefs personal secret. Well it’s time to let my most recent discovery out, and share my “Dry Rub” secret. I’ve taken my cajun seasoning obsession to the extreme, and spiced up my baby back ribs.

I love Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning. It’s a Southern passion I developed as a child, and an obsession I have to season everything with, if just for good luck. The thought had yet to occur to me to try it with “Pork Ribs”, until now. This summer’s first batch of hickory smoked ribs, I decided to do an experiment by replacing my usual spice combo with Tony Chachere’s. Here is the rub recipe:

• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning
• 2 tablespoons sea salt
• 2 tablespoons fresh cracked pepper
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• plain yellow mustard to cover ribs

Directions: After removing the silver skin from the ribs, cover the front and back in the plain yellow mustard. Then mix the rest of the ingredients together thoroughly, and cover each slab of ribs liberally. Once the ribs are covered in spice mixture, work the ribs to ensure that the rub is spread evenly and worked into the top of the pork. Let them rest over night in the fridge. Then follow your typical smoking routine for ribs, mine is to smoke with hickory at 250 degrees for 2.5 hours and then wrap the ribs in aluminum foil for another and cook 2 to 3 hours in the oven at 250 degrees. I finish the ribs by applying homemade bourbon BBQ sauce, and putting them on the grill to build a thin crust.

The question you’re asking yourself, was the same question I was asking myself when I made this leap. How did the ribs turn out? Over spicy? Over salty? Not sweet enough? It’s not fair for me to declare this a unanimous win, because it deviates from what you would consider to be classic BBQ flavors, but in this devation I discovered a new style of Southern fusion. The combo of the “Tony’s” and brown sugar creates this suprising sweet and spicy zipp. Combined with the sweet bourbon based BBQ sauce, the ribs suddenly tasted like I had found my signature combo, my own recognizable flavor creation. This signature flavor profile is best described like balancing a bowl of bourbon bred pudding mixed with spicy andouille sausage. A flavor profile that I will continue to refine, until I’ve convinced even my skeptical wife.

Do you have a signature flavor, or have you stumbled upon a peculiar flavor combo that worked out? Do you have a secret spice rub? What’s your key to BBQ success? Whats your Southern secret? Stay Hungry Y’all!

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Almost Award Winning BBQ Sauce

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This barbecue sauce recipe didn’t really come close to winning any awards with competition judges. Likely because of the strong kick of heat provided by a dose of chipotle and cayenne. It just crossed the line out of “mainstream” in the heat department. A few judges seemed to love it with high ranks for chicken and ribs and all of our B-B-Q Tricks home samplers were ready to take a bath in the stuff. It’s that good.

The best thing about this “Almost Award Wining Sauce” is that it’s a perfect sweet heat finishing sauce that will caramelize perfectly as the finishing touch to ribs and chicken. Feel free to temper the heat by dropping the cayenne or chipotle.

2 tbs. Vegetable Oil
1 large clove of Garlic (crushed/minced)
1 medium Onion minced
1 Chipotle Pepper (from can) minced
1 tsp. Chili Powder
1/4 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
1 cup Ketchup (we use Heinz)
2 tbs. Dijon Mustard (Grey Poupon)
5 tbs. Dark Molasses
3 tbs Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp fresh ground Black Pepper
2 tsp. Hot Pepper Sauce (we use Texas Pete)

Heat the oil in a deep sauce pan and then add garlic and onions until they soften. Next add all peppers and heat for 20 seconds before stirring in the remaining ingredients.

Cook on low heat for 20 minutes until thickened to your liking.

If desired: When cooled strain to remove chunks (garlic and onion).

Stores air tight refrigerated for approx. 6 days.

Here’s The Rub

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If you’re looking for a quick and easy all purpose rub this is it. It’s simple… and once you make it you’ll want to keep it on hand to sprinkle on everything from chicken to ribs. I even like the sweet heat on popcorn! It qualifies as a trick because of the super simple secret ingredient: Tony Chachere’s seasoning available in most grocery stores.

Barbecue Tricks “Anytime” Rub

• 2 tablespoons Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning



• 4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons sweet or smoked paprika

Mix thoughouly with fork and store any remaining rub in and airtight container or jar for up to one month.