How to make BBQ ribs at home: Essential tips and tricks

There’s nothing quite like the taste of BBQ ribs. The juicy, smoky flavour and unique texture can make any foodie’s mouth water just by thinking about it.

If you’re craving some delicious BBQ ribs, your first thought would be to go out and look for a place to get this irresistible delicacy. But how about just grilling some ribs at home instead?

Restaurants can get crowded and sometimes you might not always find BBQ ribs that perfectly suit your taste. By making them yourself, you can add your personal touch to the ribs and enjoy them from the comfort of your home.

In this blog post, we’ll explore handy tricks and tips on how to make BBQ ribs at home

Prep and marinate

First things first, you’ll need to trim the silver skin on your ribs. This is a membrane that’s found on the underside of the ribs that’s very hard to chew. Also, spices and marinade can’t pass through it, so off it goes.
Before you start cooking your ribs, make sure to marinate them for at least 10 hours. You can choose any marinade, but it would be best to pick one that doesn’t contain any sugar as it seeps into the meat more easily. A good marinade will leave you with an explosion of flavours with every mouthful.

Apply that rub

You might think marinade and BBQ sauce are all you need for some delicious and flavourful BBQ ribs, but that’s not completely true—you’ll want to apply some dry rub too if you want your meat to be irresistible.

Spice rub recipes aren’t set in stone, so you can try creating your own rub using ingredients of your choice. Try experimenting with pepper, salt, and other spices, and if you want to make the rub a bit sweeter, add some brown sugar. You can even purchase a ready-made dry rub to speed things up.

Remember not to boil

Many people tend to boil the meat before cooking it, but this isn’t a very good idea. When you boil your ribs, you’ll be removing the delicious natural juices that offer BBQ ribs their popular succulent texture. 

In addition, boiling the ribs will prevent them from being tender after you grill them. So skip boiling the ribs before grilling them unless it’s absolutely necessary. If you do boil them, however, make sure you marinate the ribs after boiling them.

Give your ribs some alone time

If you want to make the perfect BBQ ribs, one thing you should do is leave them alone. When your ribs are on the grill, leave them to cook and avoid opening the lid too much. When you keep opening the lid of your grill too many times, it lets out steam. 

The steam produced during cooking helps to tenderise the meat so letting it out may lead to your ribs becoming dry. That being said, you should still check on your ribs every now and then to make sure they don’t overcook, just not frequently.

Hold the sauce for later

Sauces make BBQ ribs as delectable as ever, but you should probably hold off on adding sauce until your BBQ ribs are almost done grilling. When you add the sauce in too early, you risk burning the sauce. 

What you need to do is add the sauce when the ribs are finished cooking and close the lid of the grill for a while so that the steam will warm the sauce. This will also leave your ribs with a glaze-like, glossy look, adding to its irresistibility.

Test your BBQ ribs

BBQ ribs cooked right are always delicious—you don’t need to test for that. What you do need to test for is if your ribs are cooked to perfection.

Just take a pair of tongs and see if you can pull the meat on the ribs apart easily. If you can peel the meat away effortlessly, your BBQ ribs are perfectly tender and ready to devour!

Now you know how to make BBQ ribs at home!

With the tips and tricks we’ve covered on how to make BBQ ribs at home, you can make some mouthwatering BBQ ribs that’ll make your taste buds beg for more.

Don’t forget to buy your favourite BBQ marinades to give your BBQ ribs that extra tasty punch!