So I have a confession. When I was a little girl, I did not like chili. Or pizza. Or even spaghetti. I always thought I didn’t like chili because of the beans, it’s a texture thing, but then I realized I didn’t like any of those things. Now what do they have in common?

Tomato based sauces.

I Just didn’t like them. Fast forward a few years to a family dinner of- you guessed it- chili. After carefully spooning it out with as few beans as possible, and coating it with enough cheese to choke a dairy farmer, I gritted my teeth and took a bite. It was… good. Like, really good!

“Hey mom, what’d you do different with the chili?”

“Why, you like it?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“Your Aunt Jan makes the best chili and I asked her for her recipe, and it was basically the same as mine. But, you know she’s Italian, she told me her secret- add coffee.”

Coffee. It made no sense to me. I had seen my mom add sugar to her tomato sauces in an attempt to wrangle the sweeter side of tomatoes and herbs but… coffee?

Y’all. Coffee.

After that we started putting it in all those tomato-based sauces that I was not a fan off and all of a sudden, I was a spaghetti-loving fiend.

Coffee’s robust earthy flavor isn’t just for dulling that tomato tang, however. We’ve seen it mixed into desserts, sweet sauces, and marinades- which brings me to my favorite application of all. Our Espresso Rub.

In our ongoing search for seasoning blends and dry spice rubs that are not your ordinary fare we have come across a delicious Espresso Rub. The deep richness of coffee combined with the brown sugar provides an ideal caramelized crust on your steak or ribs. This crust helps hold in the natural flavors and juices so that the meat doesn't dry out prematurely.

We also love the savory taste sensation of this Mexican inspired rub as in addition to the unexpected flavor of coffee you get the fruity heat of the ancho, the sweetness of the brown sugar and for just a dash more heat we also added some De Arbol Chile. Now while we are big promoters of salt free seasonings, we also know that the best spice rubs have their flavors further enhanced with just a bit of salt.

As we do with all rubs we like to shake our seasonings onto our meat and then work it into the meat evenly on both sides and then refrigerate before cooking. Now typically we like to have the seasonings sit for at least 1-2 hours but we found with the espresso rub it is better to only have it sit for 30 minutes to an hour before cooking. Now while we love this seasoning best on a good steak (i.e. T-Bone or Porterhouse) we also enjoyed it on bolder fish like tuna and swordfish.

Another word about the coffee we use in this blend. We've tested and tweaked our Espresso blend over the years before discovering the Sumatra Mendeling blend sourced from one of our favorite local coffee roasters. It’s bold, but not bitter, and adds a strong hit of coffee flavor that doesn’t overwhelm the natural flavor of the meats.

I know this blog doesn’t have a specific recipe, but that’s because it can stand on it’s own. Rubs are so versatile and can span so well over a variety of meats that there really isn’t a recipe to hand out. However, I have found that I like it best on red meats like steak and fresh pork. We also recommend using a heavy 1-2 Tablespoons per pound of meat to make sure you get a good crusty coverage.

But don’t limit yourself! Add a few shakes to your ground beef as you brown it, mix in those meatloafs, and even add a dash to your spaghetti sauce.