It’s summer and that means that it’s BBQ season. Few things are more synonymous with this time of year than that familiar smoky scent of meat filling the warm summer air as it burns over the coals.
And that makes for such a distinctive taste too, the charred juicy meat that you can only get from an outdoor grill. It’s as important to summer as the piney scent of a Christmas tree is to winter.
So when you’ve got your steak, burgers, sausages, chicken breasts or whatever other meats you like to enhance your summer with on the grill, why not go out of your way to make the most of it?
What can you do to ensure that you get the best possible BBQ experience? And what a lot of people don’t realize is that you can actually make that smell so much better just by adding some herbs. You can add herbs to the meat of course, but adding some to the coals is how you’ll achieve this super smokey scent.
Get yourself a good charcoal grill but some of the best-ranked ones that will preheat in about 20 mins, soak yourself a nice big bundle of herbs and then just place them directly onto the coals before you light up the grill and get to cooking your meats. It works super well because it doesn’t infuse the entirety of your meat with the taste of herbs.
What you can instead expect is a wonderful smoky scent as well as a bit of a heightened taste for the meat too. So with that in mind, which herbs are going to be the most effective ones for the job?
Rosemary
The great thing about rosemary is that it can survive all year round in your backyard so you can continue to grow it throughout the autumn and winter for use when it’s finally time to fire up the grill.
It’s also a great one because of the fact that it’s very resilient in a sense. The stems are woody which means that it can hold up under high temperatures and it will withstand the extended cooking times on the grill.
Plus rosemary smells fantastic and it will work wonders on boosting the smoky scene of your meat.
Sage
Sage has a very strong herbal and earthy aroma which makes it very popular and something that will unquestionably boost that smoky scent that you’re looking for when you’re grilling.
It’s also got quite a few health benefits so it might also be worth putting this on your meat as well to reap the rewards from that.
Paprika
Paprika comes in a variety of different forms. The most common kind is sweet and it’s what people tend to use to sprinkle on eggs or omelets, but you can get a few other types too, all of which are enjoyable in their own right.
The best kind to add to a BBQ is smoked paprika made from the pimento pepper which has been smoked over an oak fire and then ground up into a nice, fine powder.
Adding something that’s already been smoked to the coals in your grill might seem like a little bit of overkill, but when you think about it, it actually will just serve to double the smoky scent and flavor.
