Big Daddy-O BBQ Spice Rub

I'm sure as is the case with many households, Daddy is the official "BBQ-er" in our home. He loves to cook on the grill, which is nice for me in the summertime because I don't want to heat up the house! We like using spice rubs on meats and poultry, so I decided to make up a big batch and have the kids give it to Daddy for part of his Father's Day gift. I don't have an official "recipe" for this, as I am one of those annoying cooks that rarely uses one. I'll give you an idea of what we did, but you can definitely tweak this to fit your preferences!

I started with brown sugar as a base. I used a pound bag and just dumped it in a bowl. I purposefully made a big batch so that we'd be pretty set for the summer, this stuff keeps beautifully in a tightly zipped storage bag. And the beauty of it is because it's made of brown sugar, if air does get to it just put a hot dog or hamburger bun in the bag for a few hours and then it's good as new.


To the brown sugar I added onion and garlic powder, italian seasonings, seasoned salt, fresh cracked black pepper, cumin, a few red pepper flakes, some rosemary and some celery seed. I didn't measure, just dumped in and mixed until it smelled good. Whatever spices we liked the best (onion, garlic, italian seasonings, salt, pepper) I used the most and graduated the rest. I would say of the ones we liked the best I probably added 3-4T of each and the rest probably 2-3t. Like I said, add what you like though and make it your own. You know when your done because it'll smell heavenly!

To package it up I took one cup portions and put in a sandwich ziploc bag. I then put it in a cello bag and used a cute zip-tie (found them at the dollar tree) to cinch them closed. I then took cardstock and made tags. I found some "D" notepaper that I had (don't know why, no one had a name beginning with D in our house) and pasted it to the cardstock. I wrote "Happy Father's Day" on the tag, using the D from the notepaper as the "D" in day. Then the kids signed (or tried to anyway) their names.

To use the rub, just generously place on your meat or poultry 10-15 minutes before grilling is done. Just pull the item off the bbq, slather this stuff on and return to the grill. It makes for a yummy meal, I promise! Just don't put the rub on raw meat and grill as normal, because of the high sugar content the rub does burn quickly and it'll char your food if you leave it on for the entire cooking process.

Please click "Linky Parties I Love" on the right to see what parties I'll be sharing this fun, cheap and easy gift idea with.