The BBQ Blog

Tony Roma’s knows that families today are busier than ever. Between work, school and extracurricular activities, sometimes it may seem like everyone in your family is constantly on the move! Fortunately, Tony Roma’s has some great tips to make life easier for busy moms.

• Meal planning saves time. Each weekend, decide what’s for dinner for every night of the coming week, and you’ll find it takes much less time than digging around each night trying to figure out what to eat. If you’re really ambitious, you can make and freeze meals on the weekends, so that each day is really just a thaw and warm endeavor. Short on ideas for meals? Try an app like Big Oven to get inspired.
• Doing your prep work in advance can be a lifesaver. Even if you’re not up to making full meals in advance, you can chop and dice to make it easier when it’s time to throw the meal together.
• Savvy moms use meal planning to save money. When you’re ready to make a plan for the week, you’ll need two things: your favorite recipes and your favorite store’s weekly ad. Get your family’s input on what they’d like,  but try to steer your dinner options in-line with what’s on sale. Make a list and shop for everything over the weekend, and if you really want to save money, incorporate coupons into this extremely organized shopping trip.
• Don’t think you’re up to all that planning? Enlist the help of a meal planning service to make the plan for you. A quick search online will offer you many different weekly meal plans, like this one from SparkPeople.com. You may be surprised to find that once you get the hang of it, you’ll no longer need the extra help.
• You’ll be impressed how much energy you save! Of course, you can save energy for your home by using a crock pot or microwave for some of your meals, but that’s not what we mean. We’re talking about the personal energy saved when a tired mom doesn’t have to spend time and brainpower making dinner. By planning the easiest meals for the nights when you know you’ll be busiest, you can make life much easier and make mealtime less stressful.

Of course, one of the best tips for making mealtime a snap is to incorporate Tony Roma’s succulent, pre-cooked barbecue into your weekly meal plan. With Tony Roma’s, you can have your pick of ribs, pulled pork or chicken, all simple to put on the table in just about 20 minutes. To find Tony Roma’s at a grocery store near you, visit the store locator on our website. To connect with the online community, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check out our mouthwatering Pinterest boards.

Tony Roma’s BBQ is great for game day and perfect next to chips and dip. Sometimes, though, a tragedy occurs during these kinds of meals, in which the dip doesn’t hold out as long as the chips. What to do? Here, we offer some suggestions for recipes that use up those leftover chips and perfectly complement your Tony Roma’s BBQ.

• Did you know you can use potato chips to make Onion Rings? Why haven’t we been doing this all along? And seriously, we can’t think of anything better alongside Tony Roma’s BBQ than a plate of tasty onion rings.
• Unless … it’s Mac and Cheese Carbonara with Potato Chip Crust. The top of a creamy pan of mac and cheese is the perfect resting place for all those leftover potato chips or even just the yummy little crumbs left in the bottom of your bag. Better still, it’s gluten-free!
• Need some more recipe inspiration? Kettle Chips has a recipe page that will knock your socks off, with delights like Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Salad, Speak to Me en Francais Honey Dijon Salad, and Crunchy BBQ Bleu Salad- hey, salads are healthy, right?
• What’s for dessert? We’re glad you asked! This Bar Snack Blondie is a sweet and salty delight, featuring pretzels, almonds and dark chocolate. Don’t think a potato chip dessert is upscale enough for your crowd? Well, this Potato Chip Cookie recipe is good enough for Martha Stewart.

No matter what side dishes you choose, Tony Roma’s BBQ is the perfect meal for game day- or any day! Choose from a selection of precooked BBQ that includes delicious Tony Roma’s ribs and pulled pork, and can easily be prepared in only about twenty minutes. Connect with other Tony Roma’s BBQ enthusiasts by liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter, and when you’re ready to find Tony Roma’s near you, visit the store locator on our website.

Tony Roma’s precooked BBQ is the perfect entrée to support a wide variety of side dishes, but potatoes are always an excellent option. No pairing is quite as classic as meat and potatoes, a combination upon which nations are built, and this versatile vegetable can be prepared in a range of options to suit virtually any palate and complement any meal. So, which spud reigns supreme beside Tony Roma’s precooked BBQ? The answer, of course, is subjective, but we have a few suggestions.

With baby back ribs, baked potatoes or steak cut fries may be just the thing, but on the whole they might be too heavy for lighter fare, like pulled pork sandwiches or barbecued tacos. The spicy taste of Tex-Mex mashed potatoes goes admirably with the zest of barbecued tacos, but if you’re feeling a little more adventurously gourmet, you might want to try making these Chorizo Potato Bites. While Scalloped Potato Gratin is deliciously comfortable beside a plate of pulled pork, pulled chicken has a lighter taste, which may be more beautifully complemented by a simple baked sweet potato with butter. Want to go exotic? Try this Smoked Potato recipe, made with truffles and pork crumble, to “fancy up” your barbecue meal. Kettle Chips, especially because they come in so many flavors, are perfect for a picnic with any type of barbecue. Tony Roma’s precooked BBQ makes such a picnic simple to orchestrate.

The beautiful thing about Tony Roma’s precooked BBQ is that it’s so convenient to prepare, and yet so succulent. What other food allows you to put a hearty meal on the table in the time that it takes to assemble a few simple sides? Choose from pulled pork, pulled chicken or Tony Roma’s baby back ribs, all easily prepared in about twenty minutes. Connect with other Tony Roma’s precooked BBQ enthusiasts by liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter, and when you’re ready to find Tony Roma’s near you, visit the store locator on our website.

When you barbecue at home, you probably feel like you’re doing something as American as Uncle Sam, baseball and apple pie. The truth is, people all around the world barbecue at home - though it’s a little different, depending on your location. Next time you’re hosting a BBQ, think about some of these traditions from around the globe; maybe you can even incorporate something exotic into your next soiree!

• In China, barbecue is an ancient tradition. Char Siu, which literally means “fork burn/roast,” used to involve a skewered wild boar being cooked over an open fire. Today, it’s common to use a shoulder cut of pork, and season it with honey, five-spice powder, fermented red bean curd, dark soy and hoisin.
• Brazilian barbecue has a strong international following. Aside from the rustic BBQ tradition of sausages, beef, pork and chicken cooked over a hole in the ground filled with coals, there’s the popular option of meat skewered on metal spits and seasoned with coarse salt before being grilled and sliced off the skewers by a gaucho with a Churrasco knife.
• Korean barbecue is called “gogigui.” This literally means “meat + roasting” and involves cooking marinated beef, pork or chicken over charcoal grills usually built right into the table. Seasonings for popular Korean barbecue dishes include soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, pepper and “gochujang,” or Korean chili paste.
• South African barbecue is very similar to barbecue you’ll find in the United States. One interesting distinction, however, is how seriously South Africans take their BBQ! There’s even a holiday devoted to grilling - Braai Day, which has its own anthem.
• Tandoori is the traditional Indian BBQ. The name comes from the tandoor, which is a large clay or ceramic pot buried in the ground with only the neck exposed, with a fire lit inside the pot. Temperatures in the tandoor get extremely hot, and the food is cooked inside, allowing for quick and flavorful cooking, with smoke from dripping juices imparting extra flavor.
• In Columbia, a salted beef tenderloin is wrapped up in a towel and placed on a bed of coals. This causes the salt and towel to burn into a solid piece that forms a seal around the meat and traps flavorful juices inside. After the meat is cooked, the towel is cut open so that the meat can be elated.
• Of course, even in the United States, different regions have very different ideas about the best way to barbecue at home. In Texas, barbecue in the eastern part of the state involves falling-off-the-bone meat, smoked and served with sweet tomato sauce, while central Texans prefer handmade sausage and pork ribs seasoned and smoked over oak coals. Both of these styles differ greatly from the vinegar sauces of the Carolinas, which are quite dissimilar to California’s Spanish-influenced barbecue that is grilled over hot wood coals after being seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic. Our indigenous peoples have their own style as well: in Hawaii, barbecue is traditionally cooked with mesquite wood in an underground oven lined with banana leaves, while the Native Americans of the mainland put the food on a plank of wood, which is then placed directly over coals.

There are many more traditions across the world, too numerous to list here, but no matter where in the world you barbecue at home, it’s not hard to please a hungry crowd with delicious, mouthwatering ribs. Wherever Tony Roma’s pre-cooked ribs are sold, it gets even easier! If you’re a Tony Roma’s enthusiast, you can find like-minded rib fans on Facebook, or follow Tony Roma’s on Twitter for all the latest information, tips and tricks related to BBQ.