Apartment Cooking: How to Make Great Ribs in the Oven

Who says you need a grill to cook good ribs?! We thought that for years, and our apartment's lack of outdoor space for a grill meant that a good many recipes for ribs got passed over. Now we'll making up for lost time because we've finally cracked the secret to great oven-baked ribs!

Quick sear under the broiler

1. What to Buy - Buy just enough meat to fit in a single layer on a standard cookie sheet. We usually do a 4-5 pound rack of spare ribs, but you can certainly do baby back ribs or beef ribs in this same style. We haven't tried making multiple racks (on multiple oven shelves) yet, but there's no reason why that wouldn't work just as well!

Also, we think it best if you buy a whole rack, not individually split ribs. Rib meat is fairly tough, and it needs a long time to break down and become tender. Kept together, the ribs stay moist. Split ribs tend to dry out before they're really done cooking.

2. Equipment - Line a standard-sized cookie sheet with tin foil and place a metal cooling rack on top. The rack will elevate the ribs to allow circulation and even heat on all sides. We've heard of some methods where the ribs are cooked directly on the oven racks with a cookie sheet on the oven floor to catch the fat drippings, but that sounded way too messy to us!

3. Prepare the Ribs - Prepare the ribs as directed in your recipe. You can also simply brush the ribs with mustard or barbecue sauce and then rub it with your favorite spices.

4. Broil the Ribs - Lay the ribs on the rack on the cookie sheet so the meatiest side is facing up, then run them under the broiler for a few minutes until they're evenly brown and golden in spots (see photo above).

5. Bake the Ribs - Once you're done with the broiler, heat the oven to 300°. Set the ribs on an oven rack in the upper-middle of the oven and let them bake!

6. Cover the Ribs - About halfway through cooking, cover the ribs loosely with tin foil to protect them from drying out too much. This is after about 1 hour of cooking for baby back ribs and after 1 1/2 hours for spare ribs.

7. Continue Baking - Keep cooking the ribs (covered) until a knife slides easily into the thickest, meatiest part of the ribs. This means that your ribs will be so tender that you'll barely need to chew! For baby back ribs, the total cooking time will be about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. For spare ribs, it's 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

8. Add Barbecue Sauce - If you like, you can brush the ribs with barbecue sauce a half hour before they're done cooking. You can also wait until they're done, slather them with sauce, and then run them under the broiler again until the sauce is thick and sticky. Or you can do what we do and serve barbecue sauce in individual bowls for dipping!

9. Divide and Serve - Once the ribs are cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife to cut between the bones and separate the individual ribs. Stack them on a platter and dig in!

Do you have a favorite method for cooking ribs in the oven?

(Images: Flickr member The Bitten Word licensed under Creative Commons and Emma Christensen)

Comments (8)

I don't doubt that you can make good ribs from your oven using this method but there is another technique I use that I find works exceptionally well (and produces ridiculously tender ribs).

Cover your ribs with your dry rub, then wrap first with plastic-wrap, then with tinfoil. Let them sit for up to 24 hours. Then, place the foil-wrapped ribs directly in the oven on a sheet-tray. The plastic-wrap does not melt and holds in all of the moisture in the ribs. After cooking at a low temp for a couple of hours, remove the foil and plastic, cover in your favorite BBQ sauce and place under your broiler for a few minutes.

A few deviations from the article recipe:

(1) Prior to placing in the oven, remove the membrane from the back side of the ribs. Also, consider trimming the ribs down to St. Louis (if spares) as the brisket bone and extra sections are full of cartilage.

(2) Put apple juice, turbinado sugar, and honey or maple syrup into the foil pouch step. Put the ribs meat side down into the mix.

(3) Remove the ribs from the foil for the last 30-45 minutes of cooking to allow the outside to dry/firm up a bit.

(4) Look for an internal temperature of ~185 F in the thickest rib before removing from the oven.

(5) Let rest for at least 15 minutes.

(6) Enjoy, rinse, repeat!

Alton Brown's Who Loves Ya Baby Back? ribs are the only way I do my ribs in the oven.

Instead of the broiler for browning, consider my trick - brown over charcoal, then wrap in foil and bake at 200 degrees for about 2 hours. Then unwrap, and sauce, then finish at 400 degrees in the oven unwrapped. I use crumpled foil as a rack for this, so I don't have to clean a rack.

My father makes the best ribs stove top/ oven. He boils them first and then loads them in the oven. I don't know the whole process but they are just as good as the grill.

Keep the membrane! It's all about the challenge for me. I hate "fall off the bone" ribs.

Also, it's nice to sear the ribs on a bbq first to keep the juices in and then bake them.

A great dry-rub recipe:
Dry-Rub Barbecue Side Ribs

* 1/2 tbsp (30 mL) cumin seed
* 2 tbsp (30 mL) coriander seed
* 1/2 stick cinnamon
* 1 tbsp (15 mL) dried oregano
* 1/4 cup (60 mL) paprika (hot , sweet or smoked)
* 2 tbsp (30 mL) sea salt
* 1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
* 2 x racks 2 full racks pork side ribs (about 6 lbs/2.5 kg)

I bbq'd ribs all summer. I much prefer baking as they don't get too dry.

I do 350 and I don't do times as I check on them. I would say 20 min on each side.

I second the Alton Brown method. So tasty.

I've never cooked ribs any other way except in the oven. I start out by setting the oven temp. to 400. I remove the membrane from the ribs, then I wrap them in tinfoil. I put the wrapped ribs directly in the oven on the rack. I lower the temp to 350 and cook them for 2 1/2 hours. After cooking, I open up the ribs, brush them with BBQ sauce and return to the oven for 20 minutes. I usually make 3 racks at a time.