With a pressure cooker, these Barbecued Baby Back Ribs are tender, falling off-the-bone, in 15 minutes. It takes an extra ten minutes to make the most delicious “scratch” BBQ sauce you’ve ever tasted, while your ribs are cooking. This recipe can be adapted to a slow cooker, only it will take you 6 to 8 hours to achieve what I did in 15 minutes!
Yes, dear readers. Once again, I’m sharing another success story with my beloved pressure cooker. I can’t help myself. Pressure cooking has become “hip again, and I’ll take any way I can join that movement.
This recipe can be adapted for a slow cooker, for those of you who don’t own a pressure cooker. You just need to wait for a zillion more hours– well, okay, like six or eight hours. I’ve made them, this way, with bottled BBQ sauce. They’re pretty good. But, nothing beats slow grilling ribs on a Weber.
Even grilled ribs take 1-1/2 hours to be tender and ready to dig in.
I’m still having a love affair with America’s Test Kitchen’s cookbook, “Pressure Cooking Perfection“. Several of the recipes, in this cookbook, have been adapted from their recipes that are made in a more “conventional” way. I’ve made at least a half dozen of their recipes (a few more are yet to be shared with y’all).
While my Boston Baked Beans were slow baking in the oven, I pondered what to make with them. It was a raining, like nuts, and so grilling was out of the question. That’s when I remembered that I bookmarked this rib recipe. The rub took only minutes to put together.
I do love a rub that has brown sugar. It gives the ribs a beautiful color, and a nice layer of flavor. The rest of the aromatics are paprika, chili powder, cayenne pepper and salt & pepper.
I bought just one rack of ribs, since I was cooking for two.
ATK adapts their recipes for a stove top Pressure Cooker, so the ribs are cut into two-rib sections.
Set the ribs along the rim of the pressure cooker, meat side “out”, ribs facing “in”.
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Pressure Cooker Barbecued Baby Back Ribs
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
- Slow Cooker (it just takes longer)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 to 2 pounds baby back ribs cut into 2-rib sections
DRY RUB:
- 3 tablespoons paprika I reduced to 2-1/2 tablespoons
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar packed
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
SAUCE:
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 onion chopped fine
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Instructions
Rub:
- Combine the ingredients and rub mixture evenly over the ribs.
Sauce:
- Heat oil in the pressure cooker pot over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
- Stir in ketchup, water, molasses, vinegar and mustard. Stir to combine. Cook for one minute (my additional step)
- Measure out and reserve one cup of the sauce.
Pressure cook:
- Arrange the ribs upright in the pot, with meaty sides facing outward, then pour reserved sauce over the ribs.
- Lock the pressure cooker lid in place and bring to high pressure over medium-high heat. As soon as the pot reaches high pressure, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 30 minutes adjusting heat as needed to maintain high pressure.
- Note: I set my electric pressure cooker to medium-high for 15 minutes, then let it do a natural pressure release for 15 minutes. Our ribs turned out perfectly.
- For a slow cooker, cook for 6 to 8 hours.
Before serving:
- Preheat the broiler with the rack 6-inch below the flame.
- Remove ribs (meaty side up), with tongs, onto a foil-lined baking sheet with a baking rack set on top.
- Skim off the excess fat from the sauce, in the pot.
- Simmer the sauce until it is thickened, about 10 minutes, to equal about 2 cups.
- Brush the ribs with some of the sauce, flipping them over and brushing both sides.
- Starting with the meaty side up, broil until browned and sticky, for 2 to 3 minutes per side. Watch closely, as the sauce has sugar and can burn!
- Turn over a few times, adding additional sauce– for a total of 10 to 15 minutes.
Notes
Unbelievable you could prepare such gorgeous ribs in this time frame. They certainly would be welcome in my part of the Carolinas.
Sam
I think my husband would faint if I made these for him, great recipe!
One of these days I'm going to work up the courage to register for a pressure cooker… You make such an excellent case for it!
Sounds like I'd better make these ribs soon!
If you had emailed me (published all over my blog) I could have sent you a direct link. What browser are you using? My recipes show up using anything new than Explorer 7, Mozilla, Google Chrome. I can view it on my iPad and iPhone. Look at the right side bar of my blog and I also have IN BIG RED LETTERS a link to where all of my recipes are stored. If you still can't view it (did you scroll all the way to the end of my post?) email me foodiewife@gmail.com and I will send you the direct link.
Calisue, you aren't bothering me and I'm sorry if I sounded that way. It's always best to contact me, directly, because I respond to emails much quicker. I'm glad you got the recipe card to show up. I hope you like the recipe. We did!
Getting ready to try this recipe in my IP tonight. My husband loves ribs and these sound good.
Liz, I hope that you enjoy them. Please let me know how they turn out!
Do you have a short rib recipe for us diabetics? All that sugar, molasses, ketchup, black sauces are not cool. Lee
Dear Lee,
Sorry, I've been away on vacation. To address your question (not sure if his was an insult with the "not cool" comment) I am a Type II diabetic and my son is a Type I. Therefore I have a LOT of experience and knowledge about being someone with this disease.
To be direct, no, I don't have any diabetic recipes on my blog. Nor do I have gluten-free (or at least not intentionally), nor vegan.
It is old school to think that sugar is a no-no for diabetics. Carbs can affect our blood sugar.
I can eat this ribs, but obviously not an entire heaping plate full of them! I eat in moderation. My A1C (if you have a good endocrinologist, you'd know what this is) averages about 6.0 so my diet doesn't seem to blow it with my disease.
I have read diabetic cookbooks and, personally, find them boring. I will never bake with fake sugar. Period.
Good luck with managing your diabetes! Sorry.