BBQ pork ribs are mouth-watering delicious! Slow cooked, BBQ pork ribs, meaty, succulent, falling off the bone, packed with flavour – this is a dish to serve with friends or family to get down and dirty with!
BBQ pork ribs couldn’t be easier to cook or tastier – there are a zillion ways to cook bbq pork ribs; from the rubs and marinades to whether you simmer in stock first or roast…
For me, slow cooked in the oven to concentrate the flavour and then a quick blast of high heat to char them is as good as it gets! A huge family favourite – I know you’ll enjoy… Feel free to check out my other rib recipes for Beef Ribs and Lamb Ribs as well!
There are a couple of points I feel I need to address – firstly, cooking ribs on the BBQ is great; we all love it. But if you want your bbq pork ribs to be falling off the bone tender then you need to slow cook them. Putting them straight on the BBQ will cook the ribs, but they’ll be a bit tough.
If you can slow cook on your BBQ then great – if not, I would recommend slow cooking your pork ribs in the oven (following my amazing recipe of course! 🙂 and then sticking them on the BBQ to flavour.
The cool thing is you could cook these the day before and then just take them out of the fridge an hour before you want to sear them on the BBQ and they’ll only take 10 minutes to heat through and add some of that lovely charcoal flavour – you are using charcoal right?!
BBQ Pork Ribs – Ingredients:
Rack of pork ribs (these are best cooked as a rack not cut individually).
1 red onion sliced
6 cloves of garlic lightly crushed (but kept whole)
Few sprigs of rosemary
Few glugs of olive oil
BBQ Pork Ribs Marinade:
Drizzle of malt vinegar
Drizzle of dark soy sauce
2 inches of fresh ginger grated
BBQ Pork Ribs – Rub:
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon castor sugar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1/2 tablespoon salt
Few grinds of black pepper
BBQ Pork Ribs Method:
Pre heat oven to 160c
- Prep your meat – there will be a membrane (like a thick transparent skin) covering the back of the ribs (nearest to the bone). Try to slide the handle of a spoon in between two rib bones between the skin and the meat – play about abit and eventually you will be able to peel most of it off revealing the meat underneath. I do this for two reasons; 1) allows the marinade to penetrate the meat and 2) the skin is quite chewy once cooked.
Don’t panic – if you have trouble don’t worry about it; the ribs will still be awesome. - Drizzle the vinegar all over the ribs and rub it in with your hands. Drizzle just a little of the dark soy sauce over the ribs and rub into the ribs until totally covered. You don’t want the ribs swimming in this – pour away any excess.
- Grate the ginger and rub that into the meat as well.
- Mix all the ingredients for the Rub together in a bowl and then rub into the ribs. You can do this the day before and cover and leave in the fridge or do just before cooking them.
- Lay flat a large sheet of foil; drizzle some olive oil on it; then place half the sliced onions, garlic, rosemary and lay the ribs on top. Place the other half of the onion, garlic and rosemary on top of the ribs, drizzle with olive oil and a tablespoon or two of water.
- Now wrap the ribs in the foil. You will want to wrap the ribs up two or three times (I find it works best to wrap one sheet of foil around the ribs then rotate the ribs 90 degrees and wrap again, do this 3 times).
- Place on a roasting rack in a roasting tray, add some water under the foil package (but not touching it) and stick in the oven for 4 hours.
- Once done, remove from the oven, leave covered in foil and rest for 20 mins. While resting turn your oven up to 220c degrees.
- Once rested; cut open the foil to reveal your ribs and remove as much of the foil from the top and sides as possible. Spread over the top your choice of BBQ sauce (or just honey) to cover evenly and stick back in the oven for another 5-10 mins. Your ribs are already cooked so this is just to slightly char the ribs and give the BBQ sauce a nice glaze.
- Carefully and gently remove the ribs to a chopping board / serving dish and slice the ribs into individual portions.
Goes well with my bad boy chunky chips, lots of napkins and a whole load of friends or family to get messy with!
When you wrap the ribs in foil, is it shiny side in, or out?
Hi Neil, there is some debate on this; manufacturers say there is no difference, others say the shiny side reflects the heat.. Personally, I always wrap the ribs with the shiny side on the outside as inside an oven I’ve never noticed a difference.. Let me know how you get on once you’ve cooked them!