How to Make Oven Baked BBQ Ribs

Pork baby back ribs are highly prized for their mouth-watering consistency.

Barbecue ribs are usually cooked with indirect heat in an outdoor grilling environment, cooking under a relatively low temperature and being flavored by the smoke of wood charcoal. Replicating this environment indoors is difficult, but not impossible. Liquid smoke can be used sparingly to replicate the smokiness of true barbecue. And the finely controlled heating of an oven can easily reproduce the low temperatures necessary to produce succulent ribs.

Things You'll Need

• Heavy-duty aluminum foil
• Two racks of spare ribs
• 1 cup mixed spices
• 2 cups barbecue sauce

Instructions

1. Rinse off the ribs and pat them dry with paper towels. Prepare your dry rub with salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and any other spices you prefer, so long as you include salt. Sprinkle this rub over both racks of ribs, then pat and rub into the flesh. Let the ribs chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 230 degrees F, on some ovens this is the warm setting. Take a full-length sheet pan and cover it with a sheet of heavy duty foil. Place one of the ribs diagonally on this sheet, then crimp the foil around it until it is sealed. Repeat with the other rack and another sheet of foil, then arrange them side by side and put them in the oven.

3. Cook the ribs at this temperature for three to four hours. At the end of this cooking time, take out the ribs, uncover the foil and baste with barbecue sauce. Cook for another 20 minutes uncovered at 300 degrees F, then remove the ribs and let them cool down for 30 minutes before serving.

References

• Oven Baked Spare Ribs - Two Ways; Michael Chu; Jun 2004
• Food Network: EJ's Simple Oven-BBQ Ribs; Emeril Lagasse