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Ina Garten's Secret to No-Fail, Fall-Apart-Tender Ribs
A sweet and savory bite of fall-apart tender ribs is almost synonymous with summer. This handheld cut of meat is undeniably one of the items we most often associate with grilling and outdoor cooking, but it’s also likely an item that fewer home cooks attempt compared to hot dogs or hamburgers. That’s because — and I admit this is true for me too — cooking ribs can be intimidating.
Unlike a hot dog or hamburger, you can’t just throw a rack of ribs on the grill for a few minutes. Instead, a thick rack of ribs is usually cooked at low and slow temperatures to break down the collagen and connective tissues in the meat and to render out fat, yielding a perfectly tender texture. (The exception to this would be kalbi — grilled Korean-style short ribs, which are thinly sliced lengthwise and cook very quickly.)
Having a smoker makes slow-cooking ribs at a controlled temperature much easier. But most of us don’t own a smoker, nor do we want to make a homemade foil packet for a makeshift smoker, which means we’re laboring over the grill, monitoring its heat, and guessing how long to cook the ribs.To fix this chaotic process and get evenly cooked ribs every single time, cookbook author, Food Network star, and culinary icon Ina Garten has an easy method that delivers perfect results with minimal effort.
How Ina Garten cooks ribs
The Barefoot Contessa’s strategy for making barbecued ribs is the most hands-off technique you can try. In a clip shared on Instagram earlier this year, Garten explains that “What I do is I kind of cheat a little bit. I cook them in the oven until they’re falling apart and delicious and then finish them on the grill.”
To start, the hosting expert takes two racks of baby back ribs seasoned with salt and pepper and places them on a foil-lined sheet pan. She coats the ribs with a homemade barbecue sauce (although you could certainly use store-bought sauce to save more time and effort), covers them in more foil, and bakes the meat in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately an hour and a half.”
About 40 minutes before the meat is ready to come out of the oven, Garten begins heating up her grill. Once the ribs are “falling apart and delicious,” she takes them out of the oven, brushes them with more barbecue sauce, and says, “I just kind of char them on the grill, so you get all that great barbecue flavor.”
About 40 minutes before the meat is ready to come out of the oven, Garten begins heating up her grill. Once the ribs are “falling apart and delicious,” she takes them out of the oven, brushes them with more barbecue sauce, and says, “I just kind of char them on the grill, so you get all that great barbecue flavor.”
You could also refrigerate the baked ribs and grill them right before serving, making this an excellent option for entertaining in the summer. Just make sure you get the grill hot enough to leave beautifully charred marks on the tender rib meat and to add some smoky flavor.
Can you use this method to cook other cuts of meat?
Ribs aren’t the only cut of meat that can be slow-cooked in the oven and then finished on the grill for extra flavor. Feel free to experiment with other proteins that benefit from low and slow cook time, like brisket or lamb shanks. Just make sure that the meat is cooked until tender before you sear it on the grill, but still firm enough to hold its shape. This method would likely work best with cuts that have a larger surface area, which helps you make the most of the flavorful grill marks.