If you love creating delicious smoked chicken with your backyard smoker, our Smoked Chicken Dry Rub is just what you’re looking for. It’s the perfect blend of seasonings that will elevate the flavor of your roasted, grilled, or smoked chicken.
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When creating a barbecue dry rub, you want to use a blend of seasonings that will impart deep, robust flavors to the meats you’re smoking or grilling.
For years, this was our family’s secret recipe, but now we’re excited to share our smoked chicken dry rub with our friends and readers.
Our smoked chicken dry rub works well with boneless, skinless, or bone-in breasts, thighs, wings, legs, and even whole chickens.
Made with simple pantry ingredients that are more than likely already in your spice rack, our easy-to-make chicken rub for smoking is guaranteed to boost the flavor of your chicken.
If you enjoy making your own seasoning blends, try our recipes for taco seasoning and Cajun seasoning blends.
Ingredients
Gather the ingredients to prepare our smoked chicken dry rub recipe. Culinary professionals call this the “Mise en Place,” which means “everything in its Place.”
Setting up your ingredients not only helps speed up the cooking process but also ensures you have all the necessary ingredients on hand to make the recipe.
Can I change up the ingredients?
Absolutely! If you want to turn up the heat, add chili powder or use hot paprika instead of the smoked paprika. Adding ancho chili powder will give it a Tex-Mex flavor.
If you’re not a fan of heat, swap out the cayenne for chili powder.
Add brown sugar to the mixture for a touch of sweetness. You can also try adding cinnamon or allspice to enhance the molasses flavor of the brown sugar.
You can easily adjust the seasonings by adding more of your favorites. Dried thyme, oregano, rosemary, sumac, or coriander would make good additions.
You can also take the dry rub in a different direction by adding premade seasoning blends like Old Bay, lemon pepper, Italian, Jerk, or Cajun seasoning blends.
Why should I make my own barbecue dry rub?
You never really know what you’re getting with store-bought seasoning mixtures, and they’re expensive. Granted, there are times when they come in handy, but making your own seasoning mixtures will change how you think about spice blends.
Making them at home also allows you to customize and experiment with different seasonings until you develop the perfect blend of spices to fit your taste preference.
How to Make Smoked Chicken Dry Rub
Follow along with my simple step-by-step instructions to learn how to make smoked chicken dry rub in your home kitchen.
- In a small bowl, add the kosher salt, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, smoked paprika, ground cumin, and cayenne pepper.
- Whisk to combine.
Our smoked chicken dry rub will delight your friends and family, and you’ll love that you get to control the ingredients.
Store the seasoning mixture in a glass jar or an airtight container in a cool, dark area of your kitchen for up to 6 months.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, you can. Our smoked chicken rub recipe isn’t just for chicken. It can also be used as a pork rub; it’s especially delicious on pork ribs and chops.
The absolute minimum is 30 minutes, but for the best flavor, refrigerate it with the rub for 4 to 12 hours. Overnight is even better.
If you’re using the seasoned chicken immediately, it will benefit from the oil. But if you have time to let the seasonings do their magic, then don’t coat the pieces before applying the seasoning. This will let the spices penetrate the skin more easily.
More Recipes You’ll Love!
Best Smoked Chicken Dry Rub
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons onion powder
- 2 teaspoons black pepper
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper optional
Instructions
- Add the kosher salt, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, smoked paprika, ground cumin, and cayenne pepper to a small bowl.
- Whisk to combine. Store in an airtight container in a cool dark place.
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