Happy July 4, Mizzou fans. Let’s share some grilling recipes!

July 4 isn’t really a Mizzou holiday — there’s no “Best July 4 Mizzou moments” list. But this is Rock M Nation, the world’s most popular Food-with-occasional-Mizzou-focus blog. So let’s talk food. And as this is a grilling holiday, let’s talk grill food.

1. Your deathbed grill food

2. A killer burger rub

We basically alternate back and forth between experimenting with the Big Green Egg and doing awesome basics: we get the Swiss Meats smoked cheddar brats with regularity, for instance, and we do only either Hebrew National dogs or the Gilbert’s Craft Sausages that you can get in Columbia now.

For burger time, though, I don’t really care about the meat, only the process. (Okay, you can’t do the extra lean meat or whatever, but you don’t have to get particularly fancy.) I basically have a two-step process:

A. Get the grill cranking as hot as possible. The Egg can go really hot, like 600-plus degrees if given enough time.

B. Apply the following rub: 4 parts salt, 2 parts smoked paprika, 1 part pepper, 1 part turbinado sugar (or just a decent dark brown), 1 part onion powder, 1 part garlic powder. It’s spectacular.

So you apply the rub, nuke the burgers on super-high heat for just a couple of minutes on each side, and voila. The burger chars but stays all sorts of juicy and medium rare, and the rub draws out the beef flavor perfectly. (And since it works so well with beef, it works as a steak rub, too, if you don’t feel like marinating. But you should probably marinate.)

3. Turmeric

If you’re grilling chicken with just some basics like salt and pepper, add turmeric too. Always. And unless your marinade is very, very specific, add turmeric to that, too. Do it. Almost always. It makes it better 100% of the time*.

* non-scientific study

4. Your turn

What’s your go-to grilling fare, and/or what’s a recipe you stumbled across that you have fallen in love with?

Happy Fourth, everybody.