- 7 weeks ago
Chef and pitmaster Matt Abdoo shows you how to make tender, juicy pork ribs at home using your oven and grill, no smoker required. Learn how to season ribs with a flavorful dry rub, cook them low and slow, and finish them over the grill with a sticky barbecue sauce for perfectly glazed BBQ ribs.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Have you ever wanted to make those fall-off-the-bones, sticky, saucy, delicious
00:05barbecue baby back ribs at home, but you may not have a smoker? We're going to take you through
00:09all the steps from your oven to your grill, and it couldn't be simpler. This is Grilling 101.
00:15These are not smoked. They are barbecue baby back ribs. Barbecue is an adjective describing
00:20the seasoning and the sauce that's going on them. If you don't have a smoker at home,
00:24this is the closest thing you can do to mimic that flavor. Now, baby back ribs are distinctly
00:28different than spare ribs, than St. Louis ribs, but they all eat delicious. Baby back ribs are
00:33called baby back ribs because they run along the back of the pork loin. On the backside of the ribs,
00:38typically there's a membrane. Lots of times at restaurants, we peel this membrane off. I always
00:42love peeling the ribs because I want every bite to be a perfect bite. The greatest thing about doing
00:47these ribs in your oven to start them off, if we're having a big party, you can precook all these
00:51ribs
00:52the day ahead from your oven, and then when it comes time to throw them on the grill, all we're
00:55doing
00:56is getting them hot and painting with the barbecue sauce on the grill so they're ready to feed a crowd.
01:03Before we get seasoning and before we start making our rubs, we're going to get our ovens preheated
01:06to 250 degrees because we're doing our best to mimic that same temperature that we'd be cooking if
01:11they were on our smokers. This first step that I'm going to do is something that I call pre-seasoning.
01:15The pre-seasoning almost acts as that dry brining effect, and it's also going to start to extract some
01:20moisture, which is going to be perfect for when we put our seasoning on it that's going to stick to
01:24those ribs
01:24before we put it in the oven. In a small little bowl, we're going to combine our brown black pepper,
01:30some kosher salt, and that accent, aka MSG. I have a little bit of just clean, pure vegetable oil.
01:38We're going to drizzle this on the top side of our ribs just a little bit, and just use a
01:42brush
01:43to brush it all over evenly on the meat itself. This is going to help that salt and pepper
01:48accent stick to the ribs. We're going to flip it, do the same thing on the back side.
01:54Just give it a nice brush so that oil evenly coats. Take a little bit of that pre-seasoning and
01:59season
01:59the back side of our ribs. Season from up high, let it rain down onto the meat, then give it
02:05a flip,
02:06and we're just going to take the rest and evenly distribute it. This seasoning step is super important
02:11to really maximize that delicious porky goodness that these baby back ribs have to offer. We're going to let it
02:16sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes. Our ribs are seasoned with that pre-seasoning. It's doing
02:20all that amazing dry brining action. While that's happening, we're going to make our barbecue seasoning,
02:25our rib seasoning, our dry rub. First things first, in goes our light brown sugar. Then I'm going to add
02:29some granulated sugar, some kosher salt, some freshly ground coarser black pepper, some chili powder.
02:37I love using Hatch chili powder from Hatch in Mexico. For me, it just feels like it's fresher,
02:42it's brighter, it's more vibrant, it's got more flavor. Some sweet paprika,
02:45some granulated garlic, and granulated onion. Some dried thyme, dried oregano, ground cumin,
02:54some ground fennel seed. Give it a good shake. And I'm just going to shake it generously.
03:00You want a nice, good, heavy-handed layer. If you have some clumps of brown sugar, no problem.
03:05Just break them up, pat them on in there. We just want to make sure it really sticks to the
03:10meat.
03:10And that's the reason why we put that pre-seasoning on at first. It leached out some of that moisture,
03:14and it's naturally going to adhere to that meat itself. So now we're going to give it a flip.
03:18Every nook and cranny, the top side of these ribs. I'm going to transfer this entire rack onto this
03:23rack lined with foil. Oven's preheated at 250. The ribs have the seasoning on it. We're going to let
03:29them sit for another five minutes or so to really let those sugars and salts kind of dissolve and melt
03:33into the natural juices of the pork ribs. And then it's time to get them in the oven.
03:39So the ribs have been cooking at 250 for about 35-40 minutes so far. And you can see the
03:44seasoning
03:45and start to kind of caramelize up on the outside of the ribs. But this is a fun step that
03:49I love
03:49doing. In this bottle, we have equal parts apple cider vinegar, apple juice, and a little bit of
03:54water. When we're cooking low and slow, we just don't want that to dry out throughout the cooking
03:58process. So a few spritzes just on the top side of the meat, just like that. About every 20 minutes
04:03or so,
04:03for the first two hours of cooking, give it a spritz and put them back in.
04:10So we're two hours into cooking. We're really starting to set that seasoning outside. The
04:14ribs are starting to cook. To really develop all those incredible flavors, what I like to do is
04:19I take some peach nectar, some melted butter, honey, and a little bit of apple juice. It's really just
04:25going to start making that incredible glaze that's going to add moisture to those ribs and add all those
04:30flavors. We're going to bring over some heavy duty aluminum foil, take our ribs off the tray for a
04:36moment. We're going to put them onto our foil. We're going to give the top side a good lathering
04:42of that rib glaze, just like that. Then we're going to give them a flip and get that backside too.
04:48Now we're going to take this foil and we're going to wrap it up and make a perfect little pouch
04:52for our ribs to finish cooking in. Think about it. It's cooking in a foil pouch with all those added
04:57flavors, the sweetness and everything when it comes together. It's just going to make for a perfect
05:01tender, glazy bite. Pinch the ends because we don't want any of that glaze leaking out and cooking.
05:07Put it right back onto our tray and into the oven for about another 90 minutes to two hours until
05:13the
05:13internal temperature gets to between 195 and 200 degrees. It's been a total cook time of just around
05:22four hours. Next, we're going to finish these ribs on the grill and glaze them up with this amazing
05:26barbecue sauce. Our oven has done all the work. Our grill is cleaned and preheated. We're at a
05:35temperature of around 400 degrees or so, and that's right where we want to be. So we're going to open
05:39up our lid. We're going to bring our ribs over in this beautiful foil package. So you see all these
05:45juices. Some of that is that delicious glaze we put on it. Some of that is the natural juices from
05:49the
05:49pork coming out. It's all delicious. It's all really good. Gently, I'm going to take some tongs
05:54and we're going to put them on the medium heat grill.
05:59Perfect. We're starting these meat side down because that's the part that I really want
06:02to develop all that char on. But while the meat side is down charring up, of course,
06:07we're going to lacquer the backside of those ribs with some barbecue sauce because we want every
06:10bite to have that sweet, sticky goodness. So simply with our brush and our barbecue sauce,
06:14just start mopping your ribs. All we're really trying to do is get that sauce to get nice and sticky
06:19out to the ribs, reduce a little bit. Another important thing to note, guys, when we're basing
06:23up our ribs, I always like using a brush like this. I don't want to take a bottle and just
06:27pour it all
06:27over the top of the ribs. Reason being is I want this barbecue sauce to be on the meat and
06:32I don't want
06:32it to drip and spill over our grill grates. We're going to take our lid. We're just going to close
06:36it,
06:37set about a two minute timer or so to give that sauce enough time to really get sticky to those
06:41ribs.
06:41Two minutes into cooking, let's give it a look.
06:45Oh yeah, you can see the barbecue sauce is starting to get nice and sticky and really adhering to the
06:49meat. We'll give the meat a flip and we've got those incredible char marks again on the top side
06:56of the meat and we're carefully and gently going to place it. So now it's bone side down and let's
07:00glaze up the top side of these ribs. This is where all that flavor is going to really come out
07:04and
07:04explode. The top side of the ribs are sauced. We're going to close the lid and we're going to give
07:08it
07:08about another two to three, maybe four minutes to let that barbecue sauce get nice and sticky,
07:12tacky to the top side of the ribs. The ribs are all glazed up. They're perfectly saucy. And remember,
07:18we fully cooked these in the oven prior to putting them on the grill. So they've been cooked to around
07:22195 to 200 degrees. At this point, we're just getting the ribs hot and we're glazing up that sauce.
07:30The ribs, they're off the grill. They're on a cutting board. I like cutting ribs into two bone
07:35portions. When they're double bones, it kind of looks better on a platter. We're going to take our knife,
07:39go right in between the bones, and then cut right down through them. And it should give you zero
07:44resistance. Oh yeah, look at that. They're just coming right apart.
07:49These baby back ribs, having them par cooked in our oven before finishing them on the grill
07:53is the ultimate party trick. From the oven to the grill, these baby back ribs are cut,
07:58they're on our platter, and they're ready to eat. Oh yeah, look at this. Here we go.
08:04Mmm. See how that bite still leaves tease marks on that baby back rib? The meat's not falling off the
08:12bone. That's an indication of a perfectly cooked rib because we don't want the meat falling apart.
08:17Let's give it one more. Mmm. We're just going to pull the meat right apart. It's tender. It's juicy.
08:27It is full of flavor. That seasoning, that sticky barbecue sauce, everything has come together
08:33into a perfect symphony of deliciousness. And boy, did they come out great.