Barbecue Ribs – Zola Style

Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3 (ZReboot) recipe. There’s no way to use a commercial sauce for barbecue ribs. They ALL have copious amounts of sugar in them. I know. I checked every bottle in the store, so I set about to come up with a rub and a sugarless barbecue sauce for Plan Z.

There are three stages to making ribs this way. The Rub. The Ribs. The Sauce. If you are not a major cook don’t worry. This looks harder than it is. Stick with this and you’ll love your ribs.

Servings: Up to 3 lbs of ribs

Ingredients:

For The Rub:

  • ½ tsp of smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp of chili powder
  • 1 pkt of Truvia
  • 1 tsp of garlic powder
  • 1 tsp of celery salt
  • 1 tsp of dry mustard

For the Rib Sauce:

  • 1 small onion minced
  • 1 clove of garlic minced (you can use jar garlic)
  • 1 tsp of liquid smoke
  • 6 oz of tomato paste
  • 1 cup of white wine or low carb beer (or water if you are on Z2)
  • ¼ cup of tomato sauce
  • 1 Tbl cider vinegar (or a bit more of you like your sauce to have a vinegar bite)
  • 3 Tbl of dry mustard
  • 2 pinches of pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 tsp of vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp of Truvia (stevia)
  • hot sauce to taste

For the Ribs:

  • Six large country-style Pork ribs or up to 3 pounds of beef (or other cut of pork ribs. I just like the big fat ribs)
  • 1 cup of white wine or low carb beer

Instructions for The Rub:

Mix all of these together in a bowl. This will coat 3 lbs of ribs. If you want you can make double and it will keep in your cupboard in a sealed container.

Instructions for the Rib Sauce:

Put the onions in a sauce pan. Heat on medium until the onions wilt. Then add the garlic. Stir to heat. Add the other ingredients and cook on medium for 15 – 20 minutes to blend the flavors.

Instructions to prepare the Ribs:

Spread the rub on the meaty portions of the ribs–on all sides. Set the ribs in a 9″ x 13” oven proof pan. Cover with aluminum foil and set in your refrigerator for at least an hour; even up to overnight.

Heat your oven to 250 degrees.

Take the ribs out of the refrigerator and take off the aluminum foil.  Pour in the wine or beer.  Cook at 250 for 2-1/2 hours. Open the foil and carefully pour off most of the liquid. Leave about a half cup to coat the bottom.  Then spread on 1/3 of your barbecue sauce. Save the rest and keep it warm so you can put it in a bowl for dipping the ribs for those that like lots of sauce. Bake for 30 minutes more and EAT.

If it’s grilling season you can take the ribs out of the oven and grill them while you brush on sauce instead of baking them the extra 30 minutes.  On the grill they shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes per side to grill on medium.

Check the flavor and make personal adjustments as you please. Some like really hot barbecue sauce and you can always zip it up more.

Enjoy!

Cheers,