BBQ Ribs Recipe - Ribs in the Oven

If you think a BBQ ribs recipe can only be tasty if it’s cooked on the grill or smoker, think again. Ribs in the oven can be delicious, and they’re a heck of a lot easier to make than they are outdoors. Baked ribs might include any type of oven baked pork ribs, including baby back ribs, country ribs, or spare ribs. For this specific recipe, I used spare ribs. In fact, I used spare ribs that I purchased from a humane kill slaughterhouse. The oven baked ribs were super tender and moist, yet I didn’t cook them to the falling-apart point. I like a little “chew” to my baked BBQ ribs. When you bake ribs instead of grilling them, the moisture level remains high. If, like me, you like a ribs recipe that includes some crunch on the exterior, don’t worry. I’m going to tell you how to bake ribs in the oven that will be tender and tasty, with some crunch and chew. For this baked BBQ ribs recipe, I used a sugar-free citrus barbecue sauce, but any type of sauce will work. Also, once the baked spare ribs were just about cooked through, I cut them into sections of about two or three ribs each. I’ve explained to you before how I am about surface area – more surface area means more sauce! I love lots of barbecue sauce on my oven baked spare ribs, just as I do on many other foods.

What you’ll need:

1 slab spare ribs

¼ cup brown sugar or brown sugar substitute

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon paprika

2 teaspoons onion powder

2 teaspoons black pepper

2 teaspoons cayenne

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Liquid Smoke

BBQ sauce

Directions: Remove silver skin from back of ribs. Rinse ribs and pat dry. In a small bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add cider vinegar and Liquid Smoke to form a wet BBQ rub. Rub ribs all over with mixture and wrap tightly in at least two layers of foil. Place wrapped spare ribs on a cookie sheet or shallow baking pan and leave in the fridge overnight.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place ribs in oven, just as they are – in the foil and on the baking sheet. Bake ribs for two hours. Once you take the ribs out of the oven, increase the heat to 400 degrees. Remove from foil and cut ribs into sections. Brush each section generously with BBQ sauce.

Line the baking pan with foil and place ribs on pan. Bake ribs at 400 degrees for about one hour. If you want crispier ribs, turn on oven broiler for a few minutes. I actually like just a little burn on my baked ribs.