Grilling Spices: What to Use, What Burns, and How Much

The spices that work best on a grill are the ones that survive direct heat, which means coarse black pepper, cracked seeds, chile flakes and granulated garlic. Paprika, chipotle, cayenne and sugar still belong in barbecue, but they do better on the cooler side of the grill, in a sauce at the end, or scattered over the meat as it rests.

Which spices work best for grilling?

Heat tolerance matters more than flavor over live coals, because a spice that burns stops tasting like itself. Each jar below is sorted by what it does over fire and where on the grill it works best.

Seeds and coarse fragments toast on a hot grate, and fine red powders burn before the meat is cooked. That split holds for almost every jar in the cupboard, so the form you buy matters as much as the spice itself.

Salt sits outside the list because it is effectively heatproof at grill temperatures and is the only seasoning that gets below the surface of the meat.

Why do some grilling spices burn and others toast?

A grill is the one common cooking method where the seasoning gets hotter than the food.

Weber puts high direct heat at 450 to 550F, and a spice on the surface of meat over the coals takes that heat with nothing to shield it. Table sugar starts to caramelize at around 320F and then burns, so a sugary rub scorches long before a thick chop is cooked through.

A smoker running at 225 to 275F never pushes the surface to that point. That is why the same sweet rub that works on a smoked pork shoulder turns black and bitter over live coals.

Particle size is the second reason, because a fine powder has the most surface for its weight and heats through almost at once.

• Blackened: Fine garlic powder, past saving.
• Darkened: Ground paprika, already bitter.
• Toasted: Cracked coriander, improved by the heat.
• Unchanged: Cracked black peppercorns, intact.

Garlic powder scorches where granulated garlic holds on, and the only difference between them is how finely the garlic was ground. Cracked seeds sit at the other end, since their oils are held inside a hard husk that toasts the way it would in a dry pan.

Ordinary sweet paprika is the jar most barbecue seasonings lean on, and it is also one of the least heat-tolerant.

It is a fine powder of dried pepper flesh with natural sugar in it, and those sugars brown early. On the flame side of a grill it goes from red to brown to bitter well before chicken thighs are done.

Smoked paprika scorches on the same schedule. Burnt pimentón tastes of ash rather than of an oak fire, so the smoke it was bought for is the first thing lost.

Position on the grill decides most of this, since two pieces with the same rub can come off one red and one black.

• Deep red: Cooked on the indirect side, paprika intact.
• Brown and black: Cooked over the coals, paprika scorched.
• The taste: The dark one is bitter, and more seasoning cannot fix it.

Chipotle and cayenne follow the same rule, because a dried chile holds so little water that it burns in seconds.

When should spices, salt and sauce go on the grill?

Timing solves most of what heat tolerance cannot. The spices that burn do not have to be on the meat while it sits over the coals.

A two-zone fire makes that possible, because coals banked to one side leave a cooler area where a full rub cooks without scorching.

1. Salt earlySalt the meat at least 40 minutes ahead, or the day before for thick cuts and chicken.
2. Oil lightlyBrush on a thin film of oil to hold the spices and slow the scorch.
3. Press the rub onPress coarse spices into the surface just before cooking rather than sprinkling them loose.
4. Start indirectCook most of the way on the cool side with the lid down.
5. Finish directMove the meat over the coals for a few minutes of color and char.
6. Sauce lastBrush on any sugary sauce in the final minutes only.
7. Finish with the fragile spicesScatter paprika, sumac, fine chile or herbs over the meat as it rests.

Salt runs on the opposite schedule to everything else in the rub. Salted meat draws moisture to its surface, and after about 40 minutes most of that brine has gone back in, according to Kenji López-Alt's tests for Serious Eats.

• Left: Salted minutes ago, surface beaded and wet.
• Right: Salted the day before, surface dry and matte.
• On the grill: The dry one colors at once, and the wet one steams first.

Salting anywhere from a few minutes to about 40 minutes ahead leaves the surface wet at the worst moment, so the meat steams before it browns.

An overnight rest, uncovered in the fridge, also dries the surface, which is why early salting improves the char as well as the seasoning.

The fragile group earns its place at the very end, when a scatter of ground sumac, paprika or fine chile goes onto hot meat and the leftover heat blooms it without burning it.

Should you use a rub or a marinade for grilling?

A rub builds a crust, and a marinade protects fragile seasonings. Which one suits the grill depends on how long the food sits over direct heat.

Marinades reach less far than most people expect. Cook's Illustrated found that red wine had soaked less than a millimeter into beef short ribs even after 18 hours.

What a marinade does well is shield dried herbs and ground spices, because they sit in a wet layer that has to boil off before anything can scorch.

That is why herb-heavy grilling traditions lean on oil and acid. Dried oregano or thyme on a dry surface burns on the bars, and the same herbs in oil and lemon come through.

The cost of a marinade is browning, since a wet surface has to dry before it can char. Patting the meat dry before it goes on wins back most of that color.

How much rub should you use per pound?

About a tablespoon of rub per pound of meat is the usual starting point for a BBQ rub. Full, even coverage with no bare meat showing matters more than the exact spoon.

Salt is better measured by weight, at roughly 0.75 to 1 percent of the meat's weight, which comes to about 3.5 to 4.5 grams per pound.

Those amounts are starting points for a single spice. When several go into one rub, each gets less, and the total still lands near a tablespoon per pound.

Edges and thin ends collect more seasoning than flat faces, which is why trimmed corners often taste over-salted even when the total was right.

How does wood smoke change the seasoning?

Wood smoke behaves like one more seasoning, and it competes with the spices in the rub. Heavily rubbed and heavily smoked food often tastes muddled for exactly that reason.

Mesquite and hickory are the strong woods, with mesquite the stronger of the two. Beside either one a long spice list gets lost, so salt and coarse pepper end up doing most of the work.

Fruit woods such as apple and cherry are milder, and they leave room for a more detailed rub to show.

Smoky spices stack on top of the real thing. Smoked paprika and chipotle powder over charcoal can tip food from grilled to acrid, so a smoked dish usually needs less of them than an oven dish does.

Fat dripping onto the coals makes a sooty smoke rather than an aromatic one. A flare-up leaves a harsh taste that no amount of rub can cover.

Which spices define Texas, Memphis, Carolina and jerk barbecue?

Each regional style settles the heat and sugar question in its own way, and the spice list follows from how the meat is cooked.

Texas and Eastern Carolina show how far a short list goes. The Central Texas brisket rub is nicknamed a Dalmatian rub for its black and white look, and it is coarse salt and 16-mesh pepper with nothing else.

The Memphis dry rib traces back to Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous, a basement restaurant opened in 1948, where the paprika seasoning is sprinkled on rather than rubbed in.

Jerk is where the grill and the rub share an ingredient. Jerk seasoning is built on ground allspice, and in Jamaica the meat cooks over wood from the same tree, Pimenta dioica.

Suya takes a different route to a spiced crust. Thin slices of beef are coated in yaji, threaded onto skewers and oiled before grilling, and more yaji comes to the table with sliced onion and tomato.

Argentine asado leaves the spice work to the sauce. The beef gets coarse salt on the fire and chimichurri sauce at the table, so its parsley, oregano, garlic and vinegar never meet the flames.

What can you substitute for a grilling spice?

Most grilling spices can be rebuilt from two other jars, one for flavor and one for heat or smoke, which lets you set each part separately.

Granulated garlic is the one swap that improves a grilling rub, because its coarser granules scorch more slowly than the garlic powder they replace.

Nothing stands in well for coarse black pepper or salt. Both are cheap and sold everywhere, so the practical answer is to keep them in the form the grill needs.

How do you buy and keep grilling spices fresh?

Buying for the grill mostly means buying the right form. Butcher-grind pepper, granulated rather than powdered garlic and onion, and whole seeds all behave better over fire than their finer versions.

The label settles it, because granulated and powder are separate products and a jar that says neither is usually powder.

• Pepper grindButcher or 16-mesh pepper for rubs, since table grind scorches in hot spots.
• Garlic and onionThe word granulated on the label.
• SeedsWhole coriander, cumin, fennel and mustard seed, cracked as needed.
• Store-bought rubsSalt or sugar at the top of the ingredient list, a sign the blend suits low smoke better than a hot grill.
• PaprikaA bright red color, since paprika fades from red toward brick and brown as it ages.

Whole seeds and peppercorns hold their aroma far longer than ground spice. Cracking or grinding them on the day keeps the top notes that a pre-ground jar has already lost.

Rubs made with brown sugar and granulated garlic cake faster than most blends because both pull water out of humid air.

An airtight, dark jar kept away from the heat of the grill is the part of spice storage that matters most here. A jar that still tastes hot but no longer smells of pepper or smoke has lost its aroma, even though it looks fine.