Welcome to Bus Stop BBQ

Recipes, gear guides, and real-deal how-tos for the grill, smoker, and griddle. We're talking classics like pulled pork and smash burgers right alongside smoked lasagna and grilled desserts — because if you can cook it outside, it belongs here.

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Essential Tools

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Unexpected BBQ

FROM THE GRILL

Fan favorites and backyard hits

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Fish Buzara: Balkan Smoked Seafood Stew

Buzara is one of the signature seafood dishes of the Adriatic coast. Fresh seafood, garlic, olive oil, white wine, tomatoes, and parsley come together in a simple broth that's been filling Croatian dinner tables for generations. It's rustic, unfussy, and exactly the kind of meal that reminds you good ingredients don't need much help. For our version, we kept those traditional flavors but gave the fish a short trip across the kamado before it reached the pot. The smoke stays s

Bus

1 day ago

Blackberry Jalapeno BBQ Sauce - Your New Favorite BBQ Sauce

Fruit and BBQ have always gone together. Peach, cherry, and apple sauces have earned their place alongside smoked meats, but blackberries deserve a lot more attention. Their deep, slightly tart flavor brings richness without turning your sauce into dessert. For this version, we leaned into those natural flavors with fresh blackberries, real vanilla bean, roasted jalapeño, and a splash of lemon yuzu juice to brighten everything at the end. The result is a sauce that's sweet, s

Bus

Jul 12

Smoked Pulled Pork on the Kamado: Low, Slow, and Worth the Wait

Pulled pork is one of those BBQ recipes that teaches patience. You start with a big pork shoulder, hit it with salt, smoke, time, and heat, then spend the next several hours pretending you’re not checking the temperature every 12 minutes. Eventually, the meat gives up, the bone slides out, and you’re left with a pile of smoky, juicy pork that works in sandwiches, tacos, nachos, rice bowls, breakfast hash, or straight from the cutting board while calling it “quality control.”

Bus

Jul 4

Reverse Sear Steak: The Method That Changed Everything

The reverse sear changed how I cook steak. Period. Forget searing first. Forget guessing by feel. Forget hovering your hand over the grill like some backyard steak wizard trying to commune with the fire. This method flips the whole script. You start the steak low and slow, bring it up gently to temperature, then finish with the hottest sear you can manage. The result? Edge-to-edge pink. A crust that actually matters. No gray band. No sad overcooked ring. No slicing into your

French Toast Skewers: Mother's Day Madness

There are normal brunch foods. Then there are pork belly French toast skewers. This is what happens when BBQ crashes brunch with a tray of cherry-glazed pork belly and refuses to leave. You get smoky pork belly burnt ends, golden brioche French toast, fresh strawberries, powdered sugar, and a hot honey drizzle all stacked onto one skewer. It’s sweet, smoky, rich, sticky, crispy, custardy, and just messy enough to feel like brunch made the right kind of bad decision. This is n

Cedar-Planked Smoked Salmon (with Basil Vinaigrette)

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

Why I Cook on a Kamado: One Grill That Does Everything

I’ve cooked on a lot of different grills. Cheap charcoal grills. High-end gas setups. Offset smokers. I’ve owned some. Borrowed others. Cooked on plenty. But the kamado sits in the best spot on my patio. That is not an accident. Once upon a time, my stepdad said to me, "I would like to buy you a BBQ. Choose one that's around $1,000." Challenge absolutely accepted. I spent hours and hours reading blogs, looking at product reviews, having stress dreams about choosing the wrong

Essential BBQ Tools: The Gear You Actually Need (And What's a Waste of Money)

You can spend $2,000 on gadgets nobody uses. Or you can buy the things that solve 90% of every cooking problem. Let me save you money and cabinet space. The Non-Negotiables These are the tools I’d buy first. Not because they’re flashy. Because you’ll use them constantly. 1. Meat Thermometers This is the difference between guessing and knowing. A good thermometer keeps you from undercooked chicken, overcooked steak, and brisket panic. You don’t need three different lectures he

Blackstone Essentials: The Flat Top Starter Kit

There’s a moment when you realize a flat top grill changes the game. It’s usually sometime between your first smash burger and your first full breakfast cook where you’ve got eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and pancakes all going at once… and nothing is falling through grates, nothing is flaring up, and everything is cooking exactly how you want it. A flat top isn’t just another grill. It’s a different style of cooking entirely. If your smoker is for slow, low-and-steady cooks, and

The Essential Kamado Toolkit: Everything You Need to Start Smoking

A kamado grill is the best backyard cooking machine you can own. It can smoke low and slow. It can sear like a tiny ceramic volcano. It can roast, grill, bake, and generally make you feel like you’ve unlocked some ancient charcoal-powered side quest. Oh, and it can also morph into a pizza oven. But here’s the thing: the grill itself is only half the setup. If you want to actually enjoy using a kamado, especially for smoking, you need the right starter kit. Not a garage full o

Types of Wood to Smoke With (and When to Use Them)

Smoke is the soul of BBQ. Most people think wood is interchangeable. It’s not. There’s a real difference between hickory and apple, between oak and cherry, and once you start paying attention to it, you won’t go back. Get it right and your food jumps a level. Get it wrong and everything starts tasting like you grilled it inside a chimney. Here’s how to think about it. Hickory: The Workhorse If BBQ had a default setting, it would be hickory. When I’m doing brisket, I’m almost

Every Type of Grill Explained: Charcoal, Gas, Pellet, Kamado, and More

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