At You Need a BBQ, we preach meat trimming. Whenever you are prepping a piece of meat, you always need to trim the fat, take a little bit off the edges, round the corners or more. In doing that, you do often reduce the amount of fat on a piece of meat, but don’t worry, on lots of BBQ meats, we replace it with new fat to help jack up the flavors. Here we are going to give you a rundown of a few of our favorite fat products that can be sprayed, rubbed, or poured over your meat to give it that extra fat punch.

When I think of Philadelphia, I think of 2 things: The Eagles and Philly Cheesesteak. The Fresh Prince barely rings a bell compared to those 2 Philly icons. Here, we are not going to teach you about football, we are going to teach you how to nail the best sandwich in the world, the Philly Cheesesteak. I made this for the staff at You Need a BBQ for lunch last week, and they loved every bite of it. I made mine with sirloin, but you could use any cut of steak to make this work.

What’s better than a BBQ sausage? A bacon wrapped BBQ sausage? What’s better than a bacon wrapped BBQ sausage? A Rob’s Mild Rub on a bacon wrapped BBQ sausage. So simple, yet so delicious. Give this recipe a try and show off at your next barbeque party.

Potatoes Gratin is a very similar dish to Scalloped potatoes, which was one of my favorite dishes growing up. Potatoes Gratin is usually a richer dish with more flavor and more cheese than scalloped potatoes, so get your tastebuds ready because this dish will knock your socks off. A very popular dish for pairing with roast beef, Turkey or ham dinners, this dish is great because it goes a long ways and potatoes are inexpensive. This dish is also called Potatoes Dauphinoise because they originate in Dauphine France in the late 1700’s. So, when your guests ask you what’s for dinner, just let them know that you are making them a classical French dish with black truffle, and they will be very impressed.

Meat on a stick is my favorite carnival food. Consequently, it’s also my favorite way to eat meat in general, off the bone. I love steaks, chops, chicken on the bone. So, it’s no surprise that when I saw some Tomahawk Pork Chops at the grocery store, I had to have them in my life. This style of preparation is usually done with bone in rib steaks, but in this instance, I was very excited to give it a go. It’s basically a bone in loin chop with the side rib meat completely removed (probably for bacon). The bone is then cleaned and left in place, so that once the chop is done you have a nice little handle to eat it with.

We keep getting asked in the shop to bring in Salt Free seasonings and we were hesitant because salt tastes so good! However based on the volume of requests, we decided to give it a try on a couple of seasonings that sound great despite not having salt. The Pink Peppercorn Lemon Thyme seasoning from Spiceology was the first one to get a real test run. I decided to make Cod Sandwiches for the staff and they did not disappoint. I seasoned the fish quite liberally with the Peppercorn seasoning and a little bit of duck fat, took it up to 145 internal and then assembled the sandwiches. 100% will have again, these sandwiches were creamy, moist, rich and flakey.

Beef belly is also called beef plate or beef navel. Most often associated with being attached to beef plate ribs, there is a section of the beef belly that is not directly attached to the ribs, so it stands alone as a rare but highly sought-after cut of beef. I have had beef belly in Japanese restaurants where it is sliced thinly and then cooked over fire hot and fast and it was delicious. For this recipe, we prepare it very similar to how you would prepare a steak. We are going to slice the belly into 2“ strips and then cook them to be medium rare and then slice across the grain into bite size pieces.

Mac and Cheese is one of those meals that you grew up eating, and you loved it smothered in ketchup. This recipe is NOT that. There is no ketchup required with this gooey cheesy meal. The trick to making good mac and cheese is to use big noodles and good cheese, and lots of it. We like adding leftover BBQ meat to give it that amazing rich flavor. So throw away your KD and start making your smoked mac and cheese from scratch by following this recipe.

Let’s get this started by telling you that I hate 99% of all shish kebabs. You know what I’m talking about. When people take raw meat and vegetables, thread them onto a skewer with no seasoning and then cook the skewer until the veggies are limp and the meat is like leather? Well, no more! I was tasked with coming up with a super innovative shish kebab recipe that would be “elevated” or world class. No overcooked meat and limp unseasoned vegetables at You Need a BBQ! I tasked myself with finding a vegetable that cooks the same way as meat and then pairing it with some meat and seasoning. My idea came to me with King Oyster Mushrooms and Bacon! Usually when I make King oysters in a frying pan I use sesame oil, so for this recipe I paired it with our sesame BBQ sauce called Samurai Sauce from our friends at BBQ Quebec. The recipe ended up being incredible, so here it is for you to give it a try!

Memphis is famous for their dry BBQ. No, I do not mean the meat is dry, I mean the seasonings are Dry. And in Memphis, nobody is more famous than Corky’s Ribs and BBQ. This famous Memphis rib restaurant has been turning out world famous ribs for over 30 years. In that time, they have been voted Memphis’s best BBQ joint a whopping 22 times (and counting!). Locals are rarely wrong, especially when it comes to the best BBQ in their city. So now we have brought a small taste of Memphis to you! You can make these ribs using Corky’s Memphis seasoning, right here in Edmonton (or anywhere in Canada if you take advantage of our free shipping on seasonings). Follow along and whether you prefer Bourbon Rub or Honey Seasoning, we have them both.