Texas Roadhouse Steak Seasoning Recipe (Copycat Rub)

Every steak at Texas Roadhouse tastes unmistakably like Texas Roadhouse, and the seasoning is the fingerprint. The house blend leans on kosher salt and black pepper like any steakhouse, then bends sweet with brown sugar and warm with paprika, garlic and a whisper of chili. This copycat rub gets you inside smelling distance of the original, and it works on everything the grill touches.

The Copycat Blend

Mix: 2 tablespoons kosher salt, 2 teaspoons brown sugar, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, ½ teaspoon chili powder and ¼ teaspoon turmeric. That yields enough for six to eight steaks and keeps a month in a sealed jar.

The brown sugar is the tell. It caramelizes into the crust during the sear and produces that faintly sweet char the restaurant's steaks carry. The turmeric is barely detectable but rounds the color and the earthiness; skip it and few will notice, include it and the blend photographs like the real thing.

How to Apply It Like the Restaurant

Coat the steak generously on every surface, then rest it at room temperature for 30 to 40 minutes before cooking. The rest lets the salt migrate inward, seasoning the meat rather than just the crust. This single step separates restaurant-tasting steaks from seasoned-on-the-outside steaks.

Sear hard: cast iron or a raging grill, 3 to 4 minutes a side for a 1-inch cut to medium-rare. The sugar wants high heat briefly, not medium heat forever, which burns it. Full technique lives in our sirloin copycat recipe.

What Else the Rub Improves

Everything in the smoke-and-fire food group: pork chops, chicken breasts, burgers, roasted potatoes, even corn on the cob under butter. It is a general-purpose savory-sweet rub wearing a steakhouse badge.

For a taste of the original applications, the steak menu runs from the $14.49 sirloin to the $34.99 porterhouse, every one seasoned from the same family of blend.