What I Smoke

Ask most people what they smoke and they’ll say “brisket and ribs.” I smoke those too — but honestly, the meat is just the beginning. Once you have smokers running anyway, you start looking at everything in the kitchen differently. Salt, honey, butter, cheese, eggs, olive oil, black olives — if it’ll hold still and take on smoke, I’ve probably tried it. Here’s the whole rundown, with the recipe for each so you can make it yourself.

Beef

• Smoked brisket — the king. Post oak, low and slow, cooked to around 203°F, rested long. Everything on the Tips page exists because of this cut.
• Double-smoked chopped brisket — what a good brisket becomes on day two.
• Beef burnt ends — the candy of barbecue: cubed, sauced with Kansas City sauce, and smoked again until sticky.
• Smoked beef cheeks — deeply underrated; all that collagen turns to silk.

Pork

• The best BBQ ribs you ever tasted — hickory and apple, and the payoff of a good bark.
• Double-smoked bacon — taking already-smoked bacon and pushing it further. Absurd, in the best way.
• Smoked bologna — “Oklahoma prime rib.” Don’t knock it till you’ve had a smoked bologna sandwich.
• Smoked armadillo eggs — jalapeños, cheese, and sausage; a party favorite.

Poultry

Lean birds love a brine before the smoke — it’s the whole secret to keeping them juicy.

• Whole brined & smoked chicken — my go-to, finished with Alabama white sauce.
• Smoked chicken thighs and smoked wings and drumsticks — weeknight-friendly, endlessly variable with rubs.
• Brined smoked turkey — the reason my Thanksgiving oven is free for everything else.

Seafood

• Smoked salmon — hot-smoked over alder, brined first. Clean, simple, gorgeous.
• Cold-smoked lox — cured first, then cold-smoked in the cold smoker I built. This is where the food-safety rules on the Hot vs. Cold page really matter.
• Smoked haddock Scotch eggs — a fancier project, and worth it.

The unusual stuff — this is where it gets fun

This is the part that surprises people. All of these are cold-smoked (or gently smoked), because I want the smoke flavor without cooking them — which means most happen in the cold smoker or under a pellet tube.

• Smoked honey — maybe my favorite thing to smoke. Cold smoke turns honey into something incredible: drizzle it on cornbread, cheese, or into a cocktail. I even fold it into a smoked-honey crème brûlée and a smoked-honey granola.
• Smoked honey butter — smoked honey plus smoked butter. Put it on anything.
• Smoked salt — a tray of coarse salt in cool smoke for a day or two becomes a finishing salt that makes everything taste like it came off the pit. My notes on curing and curing salts and my salt-curing mix live in the same corner of the kitchen.

• Smoked olive oil — cold-smoked oil is liquid magic. I use it in smoky chimichurri, egg charcuterie, and that granola.
• Smoked black olives — a few hours of cool smoke gives olives a deep, savory, almost meaty edge. Fantastic on a cheese board or chopped into a tapenade.
• Smoked gouda and other cheeses — the classic cold-smoke project. Cherry or apple wood, low and slow, then let it rest a week for the smoke to mellow and settle.
• Smoked eggs — pimiento-cheese smoked eggs, smoked deviled eggs, and smoked-salmon deviled eggs.
• Smoked avocado purée and smoked tomato sauce — proof that vegetables belong in the smoke too.

The point

The lesson in all of this is that smoke is an ingredient, not a category. It’s not just for big cuts of meat — it’s a flavor you can add to almost anything, from a Sunday brisket to the honey in your coffee. That’s why I keep experimenting, and why the list above keeps getting longer. If you’ve got a smoker running, throw something unexpected on the top rack and see what happens. That’s the whole fun of it.

Want the sauce to go with all this meat? Head over to my BBQ Sauces pages.