Salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder is the best rub...Change my mind

[Stopsign32v]

I've tried a lot of recipe rubs for pulled pork and all turned out to where I felt the rub took away from the meat.

Since then I tried only salt, pepper, garlic, and onion. The outcome was much more traditional and just good pulled pork. Plus I prefer my BBQ sauce to complement the nice smoked meat flavor, not the nice smoked rub flavor.

 

[DougE]

My preference is different. I use a brown sugar based rub when smoking, and a vinegar based finishing sauce after it is pulled. I use no additional BBQ sauce whatsoever on my pulled pork sammies.

 

[tallbm]

I've tried a lot of recipe rubs for pulled pork and all turned out to where I felt the rub took away from the meat.

Since then I tried only salt, pepper, garlic, and onion. The outcome was much more traditional and just good pulled pork. Plus I prefer my BBQ sauce to complement the nice smoked meat flavor, not the nice smoked rub flavor.

I'm right there with you about SPOG. I won't try to convince you differently as SPOG is great on any meat and hell just about anything to cook.

The only other one I heavily do is SPOG + Paprika. I do that more on pork and chicken and stick with SPOG on beef. I will do SPOG on chicken and pork as well.

If you ever want to go more Mexican or Tex-Mex use your SPOG and then add some Chili Powder and than some pinches of ground Cumin. Go light with the Cumin.
Boom you have Mexican food seasoning for any pork, chicken, or beef!

 

[kelbro]

I like salt on a good steak. Salt and pepper on smoked brisket. Salt, pepper and onion on chicken. Salt, pepper, onion, and garlic on pork loins and ribs. But for pork butts... Salt, pepper, onion, garlic and paprika is the winner at my house.

Or you can use Lawry's for everything :)

 

[chef k-dude]

You do you, bruh.

In many of my recipes (not smoking recipes) I just have a line called "house seasonings". Depending on what I'm cooking, that can mean different combos, but almost every combination uses black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic and onion granules. If I'm making a soup or stew, I like to use bouillon for the salt if needed, whether chicken, beef or tomato bouillon depending of the flavor profile of the food/style.

For pulled pork, I have a BBQ rub, apparently very close to the recipe Jeff here sells, but totally coincidental unless he pirated the base recipe from the same place I did, the Taste of Home Cookbook grilling section recipe for BBQ spare ribs. I tweaked it just a little. It pairs well with my finishing sauce and my "dressing sauce" used at serving.

 

[chef k-dude]

Or you can use Lawry's for everything :)

I thought Lawry's had MSG but at least the current formula doesn't. I purposely use MSG in many things. It adds that "umami" that makes you go "hmmm". Its not in my rub, but goes in probably half of what I cook. It was demonized almost to extinction...to the point where, like I just saw on a deli meat truck yesterday, its actually an advertised point to not have it, like gluten. A tiny percentage of people who are sensitive to the stuff caused many foods to simply not taste as good as they used to. The stuff is perfectly safe and more natural than people know. But like peanut butter, most of us can eat all we want but there's that tiny percentage that have a bad reaction.

Even Healthline says the MSG "allergy" is a myth. I have to admit, I used to get headaches after eating takeout Chinese food when I was younger and because of the group think and media, blamed it on MSG. I also used to have irritable bowel syndrome in my 20's. As an older person, I dont have that and dont get headaches much anymore at all, from food or otherwise. It was clearly something about myself, not an external ingredient back then.