Add that popular smoky chipotle taste to your cooking today with this easy chipotle dry rub.
This is another of my “breakout” rub recipes. The next post will be my wife’s favorite salad, a southwest chipotle chicken salad and I needed a rub for the chicken with a little heat but not much. I publish recipes like this so I can refer other recipes back to them.
So what is Chipotle? Simply a smoke-dried jalapeño. So it adds some smokey heat. Jalapeno is not the hottest of peppers, so the heat is tolerable for most of us gringos. While many recipes will call for canned chipotle, I tend to use dried since I frequently can not find the cans.
While I used this on a baked chicken, it would be good for almost any meat. If used on a grilling recipe, I would add a tablespoon of brown sugar. I like a little char on my grilled meat.
Rating
A very nice rub. A high 4 to low 5. I really like the taste, so I went with the five.
Notes: Chipotle pepper grind is not the same as chipotle chili powder. While the chipotle pepper grind is just dried chipotle peppers, the chipotle chili powder can be like other chili powders with multiple other ingredients. Read the ingredients.
Various brands will be call by other similar but not the same names. Chipotle pepper grind is the Penzeys name.
And as an interesting note. During research, I found several chipotle recipes that had no chipotle of any type… very interesting…
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Chipotle Dry Rub
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons chipotle pepper ground
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Mix well
Recipe Notes
Various brands will be call by other similar but not the same names. Chipotle pepper grind is the Penzeys name. If I were using this on a grilling recipe, I would add one tablespoon brown sugar. I like a little char on my grilled meat.
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Nutrition is generally for one serving. Number of servings is stated above and is my estimate of normal serving size for this recipe.
All nutritional information are estimates and may vary from your actual results. This is home cooking, and there are many variables. To taste ingredients such as salt will be my estimate of the average used.
Linda
Hi DrDan, I’m looking for a Chipotle rub with ranch. It is a dry rub/season that I order when I get wings. I just can’t seem to find a recipe. So, if I use this one how much ranch season should I use and should I adjust the other seasons? Or if you could come up with one, but not ranchy flavored. It’s to expensive to get them all the time so I’d like to make at home… any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanx
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Linda,
Welcome to the blog.
I don’t know the exact taste you are going for let’s guess… I’m fairly good at that.
The Hidden Valley Ranch powder is what I have used before in a taco chili recipe. It had a fairly good punch of cool taste. I looked at the nutrition on that and it is mostly salt.
So my first try would be to just sub it in for the salt maybe 2 teaspoons of the seasoning for the one teaspoon of kosher salt in the recipe. You have to start someplace. That would decrease the sodium a bit.
It might be too much ranch if what you are aiming for is just a touch of ranch. So than decrease the salt to half and try one teaspoon.
Those are my best guesses.
If you try it, please post back.
Dan
Margaret Shawyer
Is there a substitute that I can use for the salt in the recipe or would it be okay just to leave it out?
DrDan
It is not much salt but leave it out if you want. There will be some taste loss.
DrDan
Laura R
This sounds really good and I am definitely trying it soon. I have used the canned chipotles in things like barbecue sauce or wet marinades, but for a dry rub on something like chicken I am sure the powder may be better. I live in Texas and there are mexican food options all over the grocery store, I can’t imagine not finding them! But then again, I spent some time in Pennsylvania and greatly miss all the great true Italian options they had there.
Lara
This sounds like it would be delicious swirled into a little mayo and used on a grilled chicken sandwich. Mmmmm. :-)
DrDan
Actually it would be good like that. The combination balances out the flavors very nicely.
Thanks for the note.
DrDan
Joan
Canned chipotle peppers can be found in a Mexican grocery usually. I buy a can and blend the contents which can be kept refrigerated a long time. The taste is a little different from the spice which I noticed is from Penseys and I do have it in my spice cupboard. So if you want the canned chipotles, try shopping where the Mexicans shop.
DrDan
There are none in my normal shopping areas. And I forget when I’m elsewhere. Just has not been a high priority item for me. I need to make a trip and just stock up on things. For this one I would still use the powder.
Thanks for the comment.
DrDan