A Father's Day Gift: Spicy BBQ Rub

My Dad loves to grill. In fact he continues to grill year round even when there is several feet of snow on the ground. So I was pretty excited when I saw these personalized grill utensils at Pick Your Plum a few weeks ago. (I'm new to Pick Your Plum, and I love seeing their daily deal arrive in my inbox each day. This was my first order and I was pleased with the ordering and delivery process.)

I knew I wanted something else to go with the utensils, so I decided we could create a BBQ rub. We gave BBQ rubs as part of our food baskets at Christmas. They are easy to create and keep, and there are lots of flavor options and ideas to play with. I combined several recipes I found on the internet to create our "Spicy BBQ Rub" recipe. 

The Recipe:

(I actually used double these quantities and made a little too much, so I'm writing up smaller amounts here. Be prepared to package up around 3 pints with these amounts. Half pint containers make a nice gift size.)

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup ground cumin

1/2 cup chili powder

1/4 cup ground black pepper

1/4 cup red cayenne pepper

1/2 cup dried minced onion

1/4 cup smoked paprika

3/4 cup paprika

Ingredient note: One of our local stores sells spices in these convenient, large containers. I would also recommend finding them at a bulk store like BJ's or Costco when making a large recipe like this. Using the small containers usually found at a grocery store would add up in cost.

Big Brother was able to help with this recipe. We measured the ingredients into a large mixing bowl. 

Next we mixed the ingredients with a wire whisk. The rub smelled pretty spicy at this point, both our noses were tingling. We did test it out at dinner by using it on some pork we grilled. It didn't taste as spicy after it had been cooked. 

We used a measuring scoop to put the rub into mason jars.

  We had a couple of other people we wanted to present the gift to besides my Dad, so we packaged up several jars of the rub and saved some for ourselves. 

I again created some labels using our word processing program and some free clip art. 

We added a little ribbon . . .

 . . . and we had the perfect complement to our utensils.