Coffee spice rub for grilled meat

I make an awesome coffee spice rub that I use to season almost every cut of red meat we throw on the grill. Whether it be a ribeye, skirt steak, London broil, New York strip, flat iron, you name it, my homemade spice rub gets coated all over it. It’s super simple and even my kids love the meat when we grill it up this way. In fact, we use it so much, I always have some pre-made in an old spice jar in our spice cabinet. You can adjust the quantities of ingredients, if you want just enough for one meal or if you want extra to store in your spice cabinet as well. My coffee rub is very similar to the spice rub I use on my chicken wings, with the addition of ground coffee. It’s a great way to use up the grounds of coffee from the bottom of a coffee bag or even perhaps from a bag of coffee you purchased that you didn’t enjoy drinking. Never throw that away! Repurpose it for this spice rub! One note of caution though, never use flavored coffee for this; just plain, unflavored decaf or regular coffee grounds will do. The other pantry-staple ingredients in my coffee rub are salt, black pepper, smoked paprika and granulated garlic. Granulated garlic and smoked paprika are two of my favorite spices to cook with because they impart so much flavor to anything. And just like I do for my chicken wings, I like to season the meat ahead of time so as to let the flavors meld and dry-marinate the meat. And while the spice rub already contains salt and black pepper, I still like to season any meat with more salt and pepper before adding the spice rub.

Coffee spice rub

1/4 cup unflavored coffee grounds
3 Tbsp. smoked paprika
2 Tbsp. granulated garlic
3-4 tsp. pink Himalayan salt or sea salt
2 tsp. ground black pepper

In a small mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients together with a fork. Mix until all the spices look evenly distributed. Use right away or store in a glass jar for future use! You can rub your meat with however much of the spice rub you desire!