Get ready to fire up your smoker for a paella recipe that will blow your mind! In this video, Tommy the Butcher from Wise Guys BBQ shows you how to make smoked paella on the BBQ — a simple, quick, and unforgettable recipe packed with smoky flavor.
We’re talking shrimp, Italian sausage, boneless chicken thighs, smoked paprika, garlic, saffron, onion, roasted peppers, rice, little neck clams, and calamari — all cooked to perfection on the smoker. Whether you’re a BBQ lover or a seafood fan, this smoked paella recipe will take your outdoor cooking game to the next level.
✅ Perfect for BBQ parties, backyard cookouts, and seafood lovers.
✅ Easy smoked paella recipe anyone can follow.
✅ A unique BBQ twist on a Spanish classic — and a great Cinco de Mayo recipe idea!
0:00 – Intro
0:33 – Smoke
2:06 – Shrimp
3:25 – Broth
6:28 – Smoke
10:57 – Taste Test!
*Paprika Powder:* https://www.amazon.com/Premium-SMOKED-Hungarian-Paprika-Powder/dp/B0CBNSP1TB/ref=asc_df_B0CBNSP1TB?mcid=75b1d6dc993b3b3e9c062fc1ff68b1d2&hvocijid=13591488011819899644-B0CBNSP1TB-&hvexpln=73&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=721245378154&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13591488011819899644&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002254&hvtargid=pla-2281435179298&dplnkId=e7e42dc7-6015-45ac-b23d-99dd350cc8c2&nodl=1&th=1
*Saffron:* https://www.amazon.com/Zaran-Saffron-Superior-Threads-Premium/dp/B079BQQVY7/ref=mp_s_a_1_3_maf_1?crid=10U1C3PJMKCNE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.VmPEldNsaW-LswQps7A7bLBmxnnd3apE2WWqjFGNiU1TCY17TqN0JrpUq5E1zLgq41FlEayM3QAvphLbKZ4wU5RoEEb93hv21UqXSK_ZWAWeE_4qoHUcPVf97FuYUXig3wiNxbOScKHdBmAgY3Q34SBh78y5p5a7_kqKu2Lh1zoPPuRzfBNck1JJdGuSbmy2sdeoXk_irTyuAFOUwYxrtw.ATazGgSKzQiJj2WKC9sOcrFXOjHu-nq1C-TN4Sa5fFU&dib_tag=se&keywords=saffron%2Bthreads&qid=1746106606&sprefix=saffron%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-3&th=1
#cooking #paella #seafoodbbq
Hey folks, Tommy the Butcher here again with Wise Guys BBQ with a new video. Really excited to do this today. What we’ve done is our Wise Guys BBQ Paella. It’s done with a few Italian ingredients in it to make it our own recipe. We did it on the grill to incorporate our BBQ aspect and we’re going to be doing it together. Stay tuned. Remember, thumbs up if you like the video. Hit that like button. Please subscribe and ring that notification bell so you won’t miss an episode. Stay tuned, we’re gonna be making it together. All right, folks, we’re outside on the grill, and we’re doing some of the beginning stages of building our paella, one of which is grilling the sausage, where we’ve got some hot Italian sausage. We’re gonna grill this up, and we’re gonna substitute the chirise, which is the classic sausage item in a paella. But seeing as we’re Wise Guys Barbecue, we’re gonna substitute with hot Italian sausage. So we got our grill up on high. Basically just gonna grill this off till it’s fully cooked, then we’ll come back to it later. We’ll cut it up in small pieces, and this is gonna go into our final paella. Also, while we’re out here doing the same grilling with the sausage, we’re gonna get our boneless chicken thighs going. These literally are just lightly salted and peppered, seasoned on both sides, and we’re gonna throw these on the grill. But these do not need to be fully cooked. We’re only going to get a little grill, like smokiness on these. They can be partially cooked because they’re going to end up back into the paella pan when we do the finished grilling towards the end. So these are only going to go on for a couple of minutes. Sausage, on the other hand, has to be fully cooked. So I’ll shut the lid. We’ll let this chicken go for another couple of minutes and we’ll flip it over and we’ll pull them. Then we’ll head inside and get to work on all the other components. All right, our hot Italian sausage are done. We’re going to pull them, bring them in, let them cool down, and we’ll revisit them shortly when we build the paella. All right, our next step, we’re going to get our shrimp ready. I’m using 13 to 15 count shrimp. You can use 16 to 20s, something that’s fairly large. We’re doing 12 ounces of shrimp. I have actually 7 13 to 15 count shrimp, fully peeled and deveined. What we’re going to do is we’re going to add about a tablespoon of olive oil. And our hot smoked paprika, we’re going to do about 1/4 of a teaspoon. This I actually just purchased off of Amazon. We’ll include a link in the description where you can get this for yourself. But it’s a very simple, easy product. We’re going to actually put half a garlic clove or a small garlic clove all chopped up. Just a little salt and pepper to taste. And that’s it. We’re going to toss this. I’m going to add a little more oil to it. Okay, there’s our shrimp component all ready to go. Once we get all the other components together, and we’ll head outside to build our paella. But here’s our shrimp. All right, folks, now it’s time to put our broth together. The broth is going to be the key ingredient that’s going to flavor our rice. It’s going to be what the rice is going to absorb and make this paella one of the best you’ve ever had. So we’re going to start with about a tablespoon, 2 tablespoons of olive oil. All right, so we got two to three tablespoons of olive oil in the pot. Next, we’re going to add Five garlic cloves, chopped finely. And we’re going to let this cook for a couple of minutes until it gets some color. All right, then we’re going to add a teaspoon and a half of hot smoked paprika. Next item we’re going to add is, this is an optional item. It’s saffron. It’s a little bit pricey. We’ve happened to purchase this on Amazon. And we’re going to add maybe just a small pinch to this. It’s going to give it a lot of color and flavor. So these are like a couple of pinches of saffron threads. We’ll include a link in the description so you can get yours. Next we’re going to add a little salt. Give this a stir. Now one of the key ingredients in any paella is what’s called a sofrito. And the sofrito is actually a combination of onion, bell pepper, and tomato. and that’s cooked down for a long period of time where all the moisture is evaporated, but that can take quite a long time on the grill. We’re going to build this paella and do it on the grill. So to take the place of a sofrito, we’re actually going to use tomato paste. We’re going to add about 3 tablespoons of tomato paste. And this is pretty much concentrated and cooked down to begin with. It’s going to add a lot of flavor. So we’re going to stir this in, give it a couple of minutes. We’re going to let it get all brown and caramelized. We’re developing a lot of flavor here. Next, what we’re going to do is, all right, next come our liquid. So normally you’ll see sherry added to a lot of paella recipes, but here at Wise Guys BBQ, we’re going to put a little spin on it. We’re going to add an Italian dry vermouth. rather than the sherry. So that goes into our pot. We’re going to add 32 ounces of a chicken broth. That’s one whole carton, 32 ounces. I believe it’s 4 cups, 4 cups of chicken broth. And last but not least, we’re going to add one 8 ounce jar of a bottled clam juice. Going to bring this back to a simmer. After it comes to a simmer, we’re going to let it go for two or three minutes. And then we can shut down the heat, put it aside, and we’ll bring it outside when we put our paella together in the pan. And this will give the rice all the liquid, the flavorful liquid that is going to be absorbed. All right folks, we’re at the outside. We’re in the outside on our grill. So what I have, I have a 15 inch paella pan and our grill, our gas grill is set. All 3 burners are fully open. You want everything on high. And that’s pretty much where we’re going to be for the initial stages of building this paella. And eventually we’re going to turn it down low. We’re going to turn it down to a medium heat. So we have our broth that we did all set to go. All our other ingredients, our shrimp, our Italian sausage, The only thing left to do now is assemble this little by little. We’re gonna go in with about a half a cup of olive oil. Next, we’re gonna go in with one medium onion, about one cup of onion, chopped, diced. Stir that around a little bit. Then we’re gonna add, we have about a half a cup of chopped roasted peppers. Store-bought is fine. The sound is amazing. All right, I wanna cook this through until we get everything pretty much blended together. Gonna add a little salt and pepper. All right, we’ll let this go another minute or two more. So far we’re doing good. What we have is three cups of an Arborio short grain rice. Not your traditional rice for most classic traditional paellas. But like I said, we’re Wise Guys Barbecue. You always have to do an Italian spin. So this is looking great. We’re getting some good color here. The onions are looking brown. We’re gonna add our rice. Three cups of arborio rice. Gonna stir this well. You want all the rice to be nicely coated in the oil. I’m gonna close the lid, let the heat come up a little bit more, and let this continue to cook. And in a minute, we’re gonna add our chicken. And then we’re gonna do our broth. So now we’re gonna add our chicken next. Just gonna arrange it. It’s gonna toss it all in and then just smooth it out, spread it out a little bit. Okay, I’m pushing the chicken to the perimeter. I want that on the outside. Most of our seafood is gonna go in the center. All right, next into the pot is our broth that we put together. The broth goes in. We’re going to smooth everything out. All right, next we’re going to add our Italian sausage, going to sprinkle it around. Next comes our shrimp. We’re going to arrange these in the middle of the pan. All right, next come our little necks. We have a pound and a half of little neck clams. Now, when you’re placing these in, you want to place them down with a hinge side, so when they open up, they’ll present well with the opening at the top. We’re going to close the lid. We’re going to reduce the heat to medium, and we’re going to let this go about 15 minutes, checking on it every so often, so we can see how that rice is being absorbed, or the liquid is being absorbed into the rice. All right, folks, our paella has been on for 17 minutes. We’re going to take a look and see what we have. Oh, wow. Great. Now you can see all our clams have opened up. There’s still some residual liquid, some broth still in there, but that’s exactly what we want because we want to add our final two ingredients to this. And we’re going to just let it go another 5 minutes and we’ll be done. The last two ingredients are basically, I’ve got some some fresh squid rings that we’ve chopped up. This is our wise guy’s barbecue spin to the paella. We are adding a calamari. Now this takes only minutes to cook, so that’s precisely why we’re putting this at the end. And the final ingredient is gonna be one cup of frozen peas. That’s just for the color. presentation. We’re going to close the lid. We have this on medium heat. Once we did the original building process, we had it on high heat, then we lowered it to medium, and it’s been on the grill for 17 minutes at medium heat. We just added the last two ingredients, the calamari and the peas. It’s at medium heat. We’re going to close the lid. Another 5 minutes. All right, folks, Tommy the Butcher back. And listen, I’m really excited to give this a try. First of all, a little inspiration that went into this. The reason why we’re doing this, we were issued a challenge. A colleague, Kristen, with Rhode IslandBBQNews.com received a comment from a viewer who challenged us to do a paella. In Wise Guys fashion, we had to take a classic paella dish and do a little spin on it, make it our own Italian-influenced and barbecue influence at all. Here’s our paella. We did it on the grill. We had Italian ingredients. We used Arborio rice. We used calamari. We used a lemon, dry white vermouth instead of a sherry. Italian sausage. We use Italian sausage to substitute for the chirise. So, I don’t know, that’s screaming barbecue and it’s screaming Italian to me all at the same time. There’s a lot going on in here. We’ll do a lot of links in the description below to some of the ingredients we used. This we did in a paella pan. I want everybody to know that you do not have to use a paella pan for this recipe. Any standard roasting pan will do. Only thing left to do is give this a try. I’m going to reach right for the middle. We got our chicken, our Italian sausage. So folks, Linda, this is for you. We appreciated the challenge. I hope we stood up to the challenge. I hope you try this. It’s absolutely delicious. You got Cinco de Mayo coming up. It’s right around the corner. This would be a perfect time to put this together. It’s virtually, it took us about 27 minutes, 18 minutes on the grill. Then we added the final two ingredients, another five, six, seven minutes on the grill. You can do it, I know you can. This is Tommy the Butcher for Wise Guys Barbecue. I hope you liked the video. Remember to like and subscribe. Ring that notification bell so you do not miss an episode. Thank you for watching. Can’t wait for the next time. So long, folks.