The Boozy Secret To The Most Flavorful Cedar Plank BBQ

Cooking with cedar planks is all the rage now for home chefs and in restaurants, and for good reason. You can use them as nifty slabs for cooking fish, other types of seafood, and meats. They are like baking sheets, except they infuse your food with their woody, smoky flavor while cooking. To make a cedar plank safe to use in an oven or over a grill, however, you must soak them, usually with water. Dry wood, after all, catches fire and burns quickly and easily. It takes much more effort and time to burn wet wood.

While cedar planks impart great flavor already, did you know you can change and enhance that flavor by going beyond water and using a spirit instead? That spirit is none other than good ole whiskey. Whiskey, with so many popular flavor notes (such as peat, smoke, oat, and spice) will further enhance the woodsy notes of your cedar plank. 

Note, however, that you will have to use quite a generous amount of whiskey, or about 2/3 cup, to soak a standard-sized cedar plank for all the flavor notes to come through. Since this is the case, you might want to consider a less expensive brand of whiskey to use for soaking your cedar planks. 

Additionally, it is good to note that you will have to be patient before you can cook with a water-and-whiskey-soaked cedar plank. A good one to two hours of soaking will suffice to keep the plank from burning or combusting in the oven or over the grill. 

Once your boozy and flavorful cedar plank is ready, you have a world of uses for it. This week, why not try making delicious pork steaks? Here's an idea for you from  Michelle Wallace, chef, pitmaster, and owner of founder of B'tween Sandwich Co., who suggested, "I would recommend grilling pork steaks on a whiskey-soaked cedar plank. This cut of pork will absorb the flavors of the cedar and whiskey nicely while staying moist. Glaze it with an Asian-style BBQ sauce that has garlic, ginger, and five spice and you'll have yourself a winning dish!"

Another idea is to try making our simple cedar plank baked salmon recipe. Just be sure to soak the cedar plank first in bourbon; any variety would do, as Tasting Table's recipe developer Michelle McGlinn stated. "It doesn't have to be a fancy one," she stressed. Regardless of your bourbon choice, your salmon dish will surely be fancy on that boozy and flavorful cedar plank.