4 of 8

Write now Article Tools

BBQ'n Fools makes a great barbecue sauce and an excellent dry rub seasoning. They use the usual spices: garlic, pepper, and paprika, and other secret spices. Almost all serious barbecuers have secret ingredients. My secret ingredient is (now, you can't tell anyone) red chile sauce.

Most barbecue uses tomato sauce in the barbecue sauce. I do sometimes, but usually use red chiles. It's New Mexico, where chile peppers rule, but no one seems to catch onto the idea of using red chiles in barbecue sauce, here, though.

There are several different schools of thought about how best to barbecue different foods. There is the argument about if the sauce should be sweet or vinegary tasting. I vote both, but not too much of either. Should you use barbecue sauce or dry rub? Dry rub, for novices, is when you rub the meat with dried spices before cooking. Should you marinate or not? When should you add the sauce?

It's much more complicated than just throwing meat on a fire and taking it off when it's black, like the women in the kitchen, think it is.

I marinate almost all meats, with wine, wine vinegar, apple cider or apricot vinegar, and olive oil, with dry rub on top all that. I allow the meat to come to room temperature and then sear the meat over a hot bed of glowing mesquite or hickory charcoal. I choke down the air supply to lower the temperature and let the meat slow cook until it's tender, and then add the sauce, allowing it to caramelize just a bit. The sugars in regular sauces will burn if you're not careful and it makes the meat bitter, so either stay away from the sauce, use virtually no sugar in your sauce, or don't cook it long enough to burn. See? I told you it was complicated.

Learn more about this author, Will Kester.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about The best spices for barbecuing?
We want to hear your view. Write now!