Homemade Pork Rub and Seasoning Blend

This Pork Rub Seasoning is a perfect blend of sweet and savory with plenty of room to customize to your taste.

I’m a big fan of making my own spice blends. I like that it gives me the control over the ingredients that go into the blend and how much of each ingredient goes in. Check out my series on Seasoning Blends over on TheCookful for more great homemade spice blends.

Scroll down to read more about how it all comes together or click here to jump straight down to the recipe.

What Ingredients Go In A Pork Rub?

This dry rub recipe for pork is so simple to put together. You can mix up the base blend for amazing results or customize it for a rub that is a little richer and deeper. Add some zing with the suggested spicy seasonings. Or go all-in for a richer, deeper, spicy blend with the suggested optional spices.

The base starts with brown sugar, paprika, salt, garlic powder, and black pepper. As I said, it’s a very safe blend that will give you great results whether you’re roasting or grilling your pork and pairs beautifully with BBQ.

Customize Your Pork Seasoning Blend

To that base blend, you can add chili powder and cumin. Your blend then becomes just a little more complex. I use this variation when I’m roasting a pork shoulder, pork butt, or really, for any delicious pork roast.

If you like a little bit of kick to your seasoning blends, consider adding cayenne, red pepper flakes, or chipotle powder. This one is great on pork tenderloin, pork chops, and especially on BBQ ribs.

The recipe makes about 1 cup of seasoning so you could even divide the base recipe into four 1/4 cup portions and experiment with the spices that I suggested or some of your favorites. Just remember to divide the suggested spice quantity by 4.

If you want to experiment, a good rule of thumb is to use is a 1:1 ratio – 1 part sugar to 1 part other spices. Essentially, you want the amount of all the spices to be equal in quantity to the amount of sugar in the recipe. So for this recipe, all of your other spices should equal 1/2 cup. (One-half cup is equal to 8 tablespoons or 24 teaspoons.) This is a good starting point and by no means a hard and fast rule. Let your taste buds determine your favorite blend.

Store any leftovers in an airtight container in a cool, dry place like the pantry.

Let me know what blends you create in the comments below. – Christine

More Pork Recipes

This post originally appeared in August 2019 and was revised and republished in September 2023.