The Best BBQ Ribs You’ll Ever Make

Have you ever wanted to make those fall-off-the-bone,

sticky, saucy, delicious barbecue baby back ribs at home,

but you may not have a smoker?

We're going to take you through all the steps from your oven

to your grill, and it couldn't be simpler.

This is Grilling 101.

These are not smoked, they are barbecue baby back ribs.

Barbecue has an adjective describing the seasoning

and the sauce that's going on them.

If you don't have a smoker at home,

this is the closest thing you can do to mimic that flavor.

Now, baby back ribs are distinctly different

than spare ribs than St. Louis ribs,

but they all eat delicious.

Baby back ribs are called baby back ribs

because they run along the back of the pork loin.

On the backside of the ribs, typically there's a membrane.

Lots of times at restaurants, we peel this membrane off.

I always love peeling the ribs

because I want every bite to be a perfect bite.

The greatest thing about doing these ribs in your oven

to start them off, if we're having a big party,

you can pre-cook all these ribs the day ahead

from your oven.

And then when it comes time to throw them on the grill,

all we're doing is getting them hot

and painting them with the barbecue sauce on the grill

so they're ready to feed a crowd.

Before we get seasoning

and before we start making our rubs,

we're going to get our ovens preheated to 250 degrees

because we're doing our best to mimic that same temperature

that we'd be cooking if they were on our smokers.

This first step that I'm going to do is something

that I call pre-seasoning.

The pre-seasoning almost acts as that dry brining effect.

And it's also going to start to extract some moisture,

which is going to be perfect

for when we put our seasoning on it,

that's going to stick to those ribs

before we put it in the oven.

In a small little bowl,

we're going to combine our ground black pepper,

some kosher salt, and that accent, AKA MSG.

I have a little bit of just clean, pure vegetable oil.

We're going to drizzle this on the top side

of our ribs just a little bit

and just use a brush to brush it all over

evenly on the meat itself.

This is going to help that salt

and pepper accent stick to the ribs.

We're going to flip it, do the same thing on the backside.

Just give it a nice brush so that oil evenly coats.

Take a little bit of that preseasoning

and season the backside of our ribs, season from up high,

let it rain down onto the meat, then give it a flip

and we're just going to take the rest

and evenly distribute it.

This seasoning step is super important to really maximize

that delicious porky goodness

that these baby back ribs have to offer.

We're going to let it sit at room temperature

for about 10 minutes.

Our ribs are seasoned with that preseasoning.

It's doing all that amazing dry brining action

while that's happening

we're going to make our barbecue seasoning,

our rib seasoning, our dry rub.

First things first in goes our light brown sugar.

Then I'm going to add some granulated sugar,

some kosher salt, some freshly ground coarser black pepper,

some chili powder.

I love using hatched chili powder from hatch in Mexico.

For me, it just feels like it's fresher, it's brighter

it's more vibrant it's got more flavor, some sweet paprika,

some granulated garlic

and granulated onion, some dried thyme, dried oregano,

ground cumin, some ground fennel seed.

Give it a good shake [seasoning whooshing]

and I'm just going to shake it generously.

We want a nice, good, heavy-handed layer.

So if you have some clumps of brown sugar, no problem,

just break them up, pat them on in there.

We just want to make sure it really sticks to the meat

and that's the reason why we put that

pre-seasoning on it first.

It leeched out some of that moisture

and it's naturally going to adhere to that meat itself.

So now we're going to give it a flip, every nook and cranny,

the top side of these ribs.

I'm going to transfer this entire rack onto

this rack lined with foil.

Oven's preheated at 250. The ribs have the seasoning on it.

We're going to let them sit for another five minutes

or so to really let those sugars and salts kind of dissolve

and melt into the natural juices of the pork ribs

and then it's time to get them in the oven.

So the ribs have been cooking at 250

for about 35 40 minutes so far.

And you can see the seasoning it start to kind

of caramelize up on the outside of the ribs,

but this is a fun step that I love doing.

In this bottle we have equal parts, apple cider vinegar,

apple juice and a little bit of water.

When we're cooking low and slow, we just don't want that

to dry out throughout the cooking process

so a few spritzes just on the top side of the meat

just like that about every 20 minutes

or so for the first two hours of cooking

give it a spritz and put them back in.

[foil rustling]

So we're two hours into cooking.

We're really starting to set that seasoning outside

the ribs are starting to cook.

To really develop all those incredible flavors

what I like to do is I take some peach nectar,

some melted butter, honey, and a little bit of apple juice.

It's really just going to start making that incredible glaze

that's going to add moisture to those ribs

and add all those flavors.

We're going to bring over some heavy duty aluminum foil,

take our ribs off the tray for a moment.

We're going to put them onto our foil.

We're going to give the top side a good lathering

of that rib glaze, just like that.

Then we're going to give them a flip

and get that backside too.

Now we're going to take this foil

and we're going to wrap it up

and make a perfect little pouch

for our ribs to finish cooking in.

Think about it, it's cooking in a foil pouch

with all those added flavors, the sweetness

and everything when it comes together,

it's just going to make for a perfect, tender, glazy bite.

Pinch the ends because we don't want any of that glaze

leaking out cooking.

Put it right back onto our tray

and into the oven for about another 90 minutes to two hours

until the internal temperature gets to

between 195 and 200 degrees.

It's been a total cook time of just around four hours.

Next, we're going to finish these ribs on the grill

and glaze them up with this amazing barbecue sauce.

[upbeat music]

Our oven has done all the work.

Our grill is cleaned and preheated.

We're at a temperature of around 400 degrees or so

and that's right where we want to be.

So we're going to open up our lid.

We're going to bring our ribs over

in this beautiful foil package.

So you see all these juices.

Some of that is that delicious glaze we put on it.

Some of that is the natural juices from the pork coming out.

It's all delicious. It's all really good.

Gently, I'm going to take some tongs

and we're going to put them on the median heat grill.

[ribs sizzling] Perfect.

We're starting these meat side down

because that's the part that I really want

to develop all that char on

but while the meat side is down charring up,

of course we're going to lacquer the backside of those ribs

with some barbecue sauce because we want every bite to have

that sweet sticky goodness.

So simply with our brush and our barbecue sauce,

just start mopping your ribs.

All we're really trying to do is get that sauce to get nice

and sticky onto the ribs, reduce a little bit.

Another important thing to note guys

when we're basing up our ribs

I always like using a brush like this.

I don't want to take a bottle

and just pour it all over the top of the ribs.

Reason being is I want this barbecue sauce to be on the meat

and I don't want it to drip and spill over our grill grates.

We're going to take our lid, we're just going to close it,

set about a two minute timer

or so to give that sauce enough time

to really get sticky to those ribs.

Two minutes into cooking, let's give it a look.

Oh yeah, you can see the barbecue sauce

is starting to get nice

and sticky and really adhering to the meat.

We'll give the meat a flip,

and we got those incredible char marks

again on the top side of the meat and we're carefully

and gently going to place it so now it's bone side down

and let's glaze up the top side of these ribs.

This is where all that flavor is going

to really come out and explode.

The top side of the ribs are sauced.

We're going to close the lid

and we're going to give it about another two to three,

maybe four minutes to let that barbecue sauce get nice

and sticky tacky to the top side of the ribs.

The ribs are all glazed up they're perfectly saucy

and remember we fully cooked these in the oven

prior to putting them on the grill

so they've been cooked to around 195 to 200 degrees.

At this point, we're just getting the ribs hot

and we're glazing up that sauce.

[upbeat music]

The ribs, they're off the grill. They're on a cutting board.

I like cutting ribs into two bone portions

when they're double boned

it kind of looks better on a platter.

We're going to take our knife, go right in between the bones

and then cut right down through them

and it should give you zero resistance.

Oh yeah, look at that. They're just coming right apart.

These baby back ribs, having them par cooked in our oven

before finishing them on the grill

is the ultimate party trick.

From the oven to the grill, these baby back ribs are cut,

they're on our platter and they're ready to eat.

Oh yeah, look at this. Here we go.

Mm, see how that bite still leaves teeth marks

on that baby back rib?

The meat's not falling off the bone.

That's an indication of a perfectly cooked rib

because we don't want the meat falling apart,

and let's give it one more.

[upbeat music]

We're just going to pull the meat right apart.

It's tender, it's juicy, it is full of flavor.

That seasoning, that sticky barbecue sauce,

everything has come together into a perfect symphony

of deliciousness and boy did they come out great.

[upbeat music]