How Blackstone teaches new griddle owners what to cook
The Blackstone hibachi steak recipe recently ranked on the first page of Google for a term searched about 12,000 times a month (as of July 2026), one page in a library built to answer the question that arrives the morning after a new griddle's first cook, which is simply what to make next. Buying a Blackstone means signing up for a style of cooking most owners have never tried, a screaming-hot flat top in the backyard instead of a grill or a stove. This teardown is part of the Recipe Kit case study library, our ongoing research into how food and gear brands turn recipes into traffic, customers, and repeat sales.
Blackstone runs one of the largest recipe libraries we host, 1,293 live recipes growing by roughly 37 a month, built around the flat-top dishes a new griddle owner most wants to attempt. It has published at that pace since 2023, treating recipes as the post-purchase activation layer that keeps owners cooking and coming back for seasonings, tools, and the next griddle.
The challenge
Blackstone is one of the biggest names in outdoor cooking in the United States, best known for its flat-top griddles and sold everywhere from big-box retail to its own store out of Logan, Utah. The company grew out of a straightforward ambition, in its own words to create "the best outdoor cooking experiences for large groups or families," cooking everything outside rather than only the handful of things a traditional grill does well. The 36-inch Blackstone griddle it introduced in 2008 became the cornerstone of the entire outdoor flat-top category, and the catalog now runs from 17-inch portable units to full backyard griddles, plus the covers, tools, seasonings, and apparel that surround them.
When someone buys their first Blackstone, they are not just buying an appliance. They are buying into a way of cooking most of them have never done before. A griddle is a blank slate, and until a new owner knows what to cook on it, the griddle sits in the garage and the accessories and consumables never get bought. A griddle bought to feed a crowd only earns its keep once the owner knows what to make.
The Blackstone homepage (live, July 2026)
The system: recipes as post-purchase activation
For a durable-goods brand, the sale is not the finish line. It is the start of the relationship that actually drives revenue, the seasonings, the sauces, the tools, the second and third griddle, all of which depend on the owner falling in love with cooking on the thing. That only happens if they know what to make.
Blackstone treats recipes as that activation layer. The library is a running answer to what to cook on a griddle, pitched at the food a new owner is most excited to attempt. The basics of fried rice teaches the hibachi-style cooking people bought the griddle to do. Hibachi steak, Philly cheesesteaks, and smash burger tacos are the flat-top classics that turn a nervous first-timer into someone who cooks outside three nights a week. A recipe like this gives a new owner one more reason to walk back out to the griddle.
The recipe card on Blackstone's basics of fried rice page (live, July 2026)
The hibachi steak recipe recently ranked on the first page of Google for "hibachi steak," a term searched about 12,000 times a month in the US (as of July 2026). For a brand this size, a fast-growing griddle library is how a high-intent search like that gets answered on Blackstone's own store rather than a recipe blog's.
Blackstone publishes like the mass brand it is. The library sits at 1,293 live recipes, growing by roughly 37 new ones a month over the past year, one of the highest sustained cadences we host. The catalog is organized and filterable across cuisines, cooking methods, meal types, and seasons, and it draws on named contributing chefs to keep the quality and the variety up. A first-time griddle owner in July wants smash burgers. The same person in December wants breakfast for a crowd. A library this deep, filterable and constantly refreshed, has an answer for whoever the owner is and whatever they are in the mood to attempt.
How Recipe Kit supports the system
Recipe Kit powers the library end to end. Structured recipe schema is part of what helps the hibachi steak page compete for a term searched 12,000 times a month, and the recipe cards we reviewed, including basics of fried rice and hibachi steak, link back to the Blackstone products used to make the dish, turning the page into more than an instruction sheet. The recipes we reviewed also carry visible customer star ratings, adding social proof at the moment a new owner is deciding whether to try it. Blackstone has been on Recipe Kit since 2023, and the library has become one of the strongest recipe-traffic engines in our customer base.
In their words
Your hibachi steak recipe sits on the first page of Google for a term searched about 12,000 times a month. Walk me through how a recipe like that gets made across such a big program: who owns it, how you decide which searches are worth building for, and what gets a griddle brand onto page one for a broad dish term.
[Awaiting Blackstone’s answer. This section fills in once the team has reviewed the draft.]
Do you see recipes as part of the product manual, the thing that keeps a new purchase from gathering dust, or as their own marketing channel?
[Awaiting Blackstone’s answer. This section fills in once the team has reviewed the draft.]
How do recipes fit into the bigger picture of growing Blackstone?
[Awaiting Blackstone’s answer. This section fills in once the team has reviewed the draft.]
Lessons for gear and cookware brands
The moves that travel from Blackstone to other appliance brands on Shopify, and to any brand selling equipment or anything with a learning curve.
- Treat the sale as the start, not the end. For durable goods, revenue lives in the relationship after the purchase, and recipes are how you keep a new owner engaged long enough to buy everything that comes next.
- Lead with the dishes that prove the purchase. Blackstone fronts the flat-top staples a nervous first-timer wants to nail, the basics of fried rice, hibachi steak, Philly cheesesteaks, and smash burger tacos, because those are the dishes that turn a garage-bound griddle into a three-nights-a-week habit.
- Make the library deep and filterable. Blackstone's 1,293 recipes are filterable across cuisines, cooking methods, meal types, and seasons, so a July smash-burger owner and a December breakfast host each land on an answer instead of bouncing to a generic recipe site.
- Run it as a real content operation. Roughly 37 new recipes a month since 2023, produced with named guest chefs, is a staffed program rather than a handful of recipes bolted onto a product page, and the steady output is what signals a living community around the griddle.
- Put star ratings on recipe pages. Blackstone surfaces visible customer ratings on the recipes we reviewed, adding social proof at the exact moment an owner is deciding whether to try it.
More appliance and gear stories from the case study library: how Dash builds a recipe library for every appliance, how Shark Ninja Singapore uses recipes as appliance marketing, and how All Things Barbecue uses recipes as gear marketing.
Turn your catalog into a library of product demonstrations
Publish structured recipes on Shopify, connect each dish with the products used to make it, and show shoppers what your products can actually do.
