These spicy Asian ribs are exactly what you need to elevate your BBQ game! A perfect new twist of flavors on an old classic!
**Post written by The BBQ Brothers. For all meat prep, grill set up, temperature and humidity control, recommended tools, and techniques for The BBQ Brothers recipes, check out The BBQ Brothers Beginner’s Guide To Grilling first, then get to cookin!
So now that we’re in the dog days of summer, we get to the point where all the standby BBQ starts to get a little stale. What better way to spice things up but to take a classic and throw a new set of flavors on it? So today we are going to be tossing aside our usual BBQ spices to make some Asian inspired Spicy Ribs.
First things first, we need to get some ribs. For this recipe, we used a rack of baby backs, but feel free to use St. Louis cut or whatever kind you like. As always, we want to remove the tough membrane from the back of the bones since that will only get tougher as it cooks and won’t allow our smoke or spices to penetrate the meat. So what you’ll want to do is take a dry paper towel and find a piece of the membrane that is somewhat loose (or take a butter knife to slide under and pry upwards) and peel off the membrane. If you’re lucky you can get it off all in one pull, or if you’re not, you will need to go back for more.
Once we get that taken care of, we can get to spicing these boys up. For a binder to help our rub stick to the meat, we’re going to use some soy sauce. This will help flavor and brine the meat, too, since there is so much salt in the sauce. I also like to build another layer of flavor with our slather by using some hot sauce. You can use whatever kind you like, but, again, this will help brine the meat as well as obviously add some spice.
We are going to make our rub with equal parts salt, pepper, chili powder, crushed red pepper, paprika, garlic powder and cayenne pepper. This may sound like it’s going to melt your face off, but during the cooking process the flavors will mellow (but will still give a healthy kick!)
Lastly, we are going to give a nice drizzle of sesame oil to really give it that nice Asian flavor.
After allowing the surface to tack up for at least a half hour and up to overnight, they are ready to go onto the smoker. As usual, we are going to try to keep our temp from 225-250F. I used maple wood for this smoke, but you can use any that you prefer. These ribs took around 5 hours, and we left it uncovered the whole time to get a nice crunchy bark on the outside. You’ll want to start probing for tenderness after around 4 hours and once you feel that they are buttery and tender, you can go ahead and pull them off.
To keep up with the Asian theme I took some finely sliced scallions and sesame seeds and sprinkled them on top. Not only does it look super fancy but the scallions, in particular, give a nice brightness that stands out against the savory spicy ribs.
In the mood for more ribs? Check out our competition style ribs and our 3-2-1 BBQ Ribs (fall off the bone style). We’ve even got a smoked rib and pork butt sandwich or you can step up your “rib” game with this smoked prime rib!
BBQ ESSENTIALS (Spicy Asian Ribs Edition)
Meat Used: 1 rack of ribs (we used baby back)
Seasoning: Rub is equal parts salt, pepper, chili powder, crushed red pepper, paprika, garlic powder and cayenne pepper
Other ingredients: Soy sauce as binder, hot sauce, seasame oil, scallions and sesame seeds
Wood Used: Maple
Grill Temperature: 225-250 degrees
Smoke Time: 5 hours, uncovered
Other tips:
- Remove membrane from ribs before beginning
- Use soy sauce as a binder with an additional layer of hot sauce on top. Add rub and drizzle with sesame oil. Allow to sit to tack up for at least 1/2 hour and up to overnight.
- Cook uncovered to develop a crunchy bark
- Ribs are done once buttery and tender (about 5 hours into smoke)
- Top with sliced scallions and sesame seeds
So let us know what you think….did this recipe smoke the competition or go up in flames?
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