Recipes, Tips, and Guides

There are two kinds of BBQ gear lists. The first kind is written by someone who clearly searched “best BBQ accessories” and then glued together a list of products like a raccoon building a spaceship. This is not that. This is the actual gear I use behind Bus Stop BBQ. The grills, tools, gadgets, accessories, and meat-handling devices that show up when I’m smoking lamb, making smash burgers, cooking breakfast burritos on the flat top, reverse searing steaks, or trying to feed

Pot pie is peak comfort food. Creamy filling. Tender chicken. Vegetables. Buttery crust. The kind of meal that says, “No, you are not being productive after this.” But here’s what most people miss: pot pie is basically a vehicle for filling. The crust matters, obviously. We respect the crust. But the filling is where the real flavor lives. So if you smoke the meat and filling first, you get something deeper, richer, and way more interesting than the standard oven version. The

Chili on the smoker hits different. I’m not talking about smoking one pepper, waving it over a pot, and calling it innovation. I mean a Dutch oven sitting on the grate of your kamado or smoker for hours while smoke works its way into the beef, beans, tomatoes, spices, and every little corner of the pot. That’s the move. Most stovetop chili is fine. Respectable. Functional. It’ll get you through a cold night and a football game. But smoked chili has a deeper backbone. The meat

Mac and cheese is already perfect. It’s warm. It’s cheesy. It’s comforting. It’s one of those foods everyone loves, even when they’re pretending to be too sophisticated for it. But put it on the smoker? That’s when it graduates. The smoke hits the top first, giving you a golden, savory crust with just enough backyard flavor to make people ask what you did differently. Underneath, the pasta stays creamy, the cheese stays rich, and the whole thing gets a little deeper, a little

Lasagna is already a heavyweight. Meat sauce. Pasta. Ricotta. Mozzarella. Parmesan. Layers on layers on layers. It’s comfort food with architecture. But once you smoke it in a kamado, it becomes something else. The smoke gets into the sauce. It settles into the cheese. It sneaks into the edges of the noodles. The whole pan turns into this wood-fired, bubbling, cheesy situation that tastes like lasagna took a trip through the backyard and came back with stories. Lasagna loves

Pork belly burnt ends are already ridiculous. Rich, smoky, fatty cubes of happiness. Now we take that and run it through an Asian flavor profile… and things get a little out of hand (in the best way). Hoisin. Ginger. Sesame. Gochujang. Star anise. This is the kind of dish where people take one bite and just… stop talking. Not because they’re being polite. Because their brain is busy. So fire up your smoker of choice and make your next Lunar New Year party one to remember. Ing

Beef plate short ribs are the ones people call dino ribs because they look like something Fred Flintstone would order at a drive-in. Big bone. Huge beefy cap. Dramatic entrance. They might be the most underrated cut in BBQ. Everything people love about brisket is here, but in a package that is more forgiving, more ridiculous-looking, and honestly easier to pull off. A good rack of beef plate ribs gives you smoke, bark, rendered fat, and that deep beef flavor that makes everyo

This is the dish. If someone asks me what's the one thing I make better than anything else — it's this. Not because it's complicated. It's actually dead simple. But the process rewards patience in a way that nothing else does. A two-day cure. A cedar plank. Low smoke. A fresh basil vinaigrette that ties everything together. Every single time I make this, someone asks for the recipe. So here it is. Why Two Days? The Pellicle. The secret is the pellicle — that tacky, slightly g

Look, not every BBQ meal needs a heavy, sticky sauce situation. Sometimes the smoker is already bringing enough richness to the party and what the plate actually needs is something fresh, sharp, and green enough to remind everybody vegetables still exist. That’s where this basil vinaigrette comes in. Fresh basil, olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, shallot, and a little heat. It’s bright, herbaceous, and surprisingly good next to smoky meat, grilled vegetables, or fish. This

A flat top grill is one of those things that looks almost too simple to be exciting. It’s a steel plate. Propane burners underneath. That’s it. But somehow, flat top grills went from “thing you see at diners” to the second grill on half the patios I visit. And honestly, I get it. I have a Blackstone as my flat top, and once I added that next to my kamado, the whole backyard cooking setup finally made sense. With the kamado and the Blackstone together, I can do basically every

Pljeskavica, pronounced plee-yes-kah-vee-tsah, is Serbia’s answer to the burger. Except bigger. Spicier. Juicier. And much more likely to make you wonder why you’ve been treating ground meat so gently your whole life. The name comes from pljesak, meaning to clap your hands, because you literally slap the meat into shape before grilling. No patty press. No delicate little burger puck. You slap it back and forth until it becomes a wide, thin, glorious Balkan meat disc. This is

Walk into any big box store during grilling season and you’ll see a wall of metal, ceramic, propane tanks, side burners, pellet hoppers, and price tags that make you briefly reconsider indoor cooking. Charcoal. Gas. Pellet. Kamado. Flat top. Offset. Some weird hybrid grill that looks like it was designed during a committee meeting. It’s a lot. The good news is that most grills are not “better” or “worse” in some universal way. They’re just built for different kinds of cooking

If you think pork has the monopoly on pulled BBQ, allow me to introduce the underdog hero of the smoker. Lamb shoulder does not get nearly the love of brisket, ribs, or pork shoulder, which is a shame because this fatty, slightly gamey cut was basically built for low-and-slow cooking. We take a whole lamb shoulder, hit it with rosemary, thyme, garlic, smoke, and patience, then cook it until it gives up completely. After that, you pull it apart for sandwiches, tacos, rice bowl

Grilled Ćevapi — The Heartbeat of the Balkan Grill If there's one dish that unites the Balkans over fire and smoke, it's ćevapi. No casing. No frills. Just a juicy blend of meats kissed by flame and served with pillowy flatbread, fresh onions, and a generous spoonful of ajvar. A hot grill. A cold beer. A plate of ćevapi shared with friends. That's the whole vibe. What You Need The meat (makes ~30 ćevapi): 1 lb ground beef ½ lb ground lamb ½ lb ground pork 4 cloves garlic (min

Here’s something that still feels slightly absurd the first time you see it: Smoked meatballs can get a real smoke ring. Not “kind of smoky.” Not “tastes like it saw a smoker once.” A real smoke ring. Like brisket or pork shoulder, except wrapped around a tiny meat sphere. Somehow that makes it even better. Once you smoke meatballs, oven-baked meatballs start feeling like they never got invited to the good party. These come out smoky, juicy, and crusted on the outside with th

We smoke whole chickens all the time at Bus Stop BBQ. And once the meat is pulled off for sandwiches, tacos, rice bowls, salads, or whatever else is happening that week, you’re left with the carcass. Most people toss it. That is a mistake. That smoked chicken skeleton is liquid gold waiting to happen. Bones, skin, little bits of leftover meat, smoke, collagen, and time. Put all of that in a pot with water, aromatics, and a few hours on the kamado, and you get a broth that tas

Regular enchiladas are great. Smoked enchiladas are what happens when comfort food gets sent outside and comes back with better stories. You start with good smoked meat, usually chicken or pork. Then you fold it into a creamy, cheesy filling, roll it into warm corn tortillas, cover everything with enchilada sauce and more cheese, and let the smoker bring the whole pan together. The smoke gets into the meat first. Then the whole dish gets another gentle hit while the sauce bub

There are sauces that quietly sit on the side of the plate. This is not one of them. Mint chimichurri shows up loud. Garlic. Vinegar. Herbs. Heat. It cuts through rich grilled meat like it was built specifically for lamb cooked over fire, which honestly… it kind of was. Traditional chimichurri usually leans heavily on parsley and oregano. This version swings Balkan. More mint. More garlic. More sharpness. Less “steakhouse condiment,” more “someone’s uncle made this at a backy

There are a lot of ways to cook a whole chicken. This one involves standing it upright over beer and letting a kamado slowly turn it into backyard gold. It looks a little ridiculous the first time you do it. Then you eat it and realize it might be the best chicken you’ve ever made. Beer can chicken is simple in theory. You season a whole bird, stand it over a can of beer or a chicken stand, and let the heat and smoke do the rest. But on a kamado? That ceramic heat and steady

Your Blackstone is not just for breakfast. I know, everyone treats it like a pancake-and-bacon machine, and I am not here to disrespect that. Pancakes matter. Bacon matters. Hash browns in bacon grease may be one of the pillars of civilization. But the Blackstone can do more. Once you realize it’s basically a giant hot steel cooking surface with room to spread out, fried rice starts making a lot of sense. It gives you high heat, direct contact, and enough space to actually fr