I was convinced I wasn’t a read meat fan, until I tried this recipe. These ribs slide right off the bone, and the home-made BBQ sauce is the perfect mix of sweet and savory. My usually tofu filled fridge will be making some room for these every once in a while.

I’ve made them two times so far, and it’s a simple and low maintenance dish to make if you get the timing right. The recipe starts off with boiling the ribs in water plus some flavoring for 1.5- 2 hrs. —> read: can’t eat it immediately. whelp. The first time I made these I realized I couldn’t finish cooking in time for lunch. But… after taking account the boiling time, the ribs were a breeze to make. I just set them to boil and do other things for 2 hours (keep the lid open or ajar and it won’t boil over) and then come back in time to cook them on a skillet !

To start this recipe off, you want to have 1/2 a rack of ribs. The recipe can easily be doubled to cook an entire rack at once, but my pot was not large enough to hold it all, so I did 1/2 a rack each time. When you buy the ribs, the store will probably cut it a few times, but you’ll have to chop a little at home to get it to about 2-3 inch width (follow where the bones end). It’ll look like this in size when you are boiling.

Chinese pork ribs, pre-cooking Boil with flavoring and vegetables (see recipe). When you’re done, a lot of the water will have evaporated (remember you are keeping the cap off or ajar while boiling) so it’ll look more like this:

Chinese BBQ pork ribs - yummy rib broth. At this point, the meat should be sliding off the bone and your kitchen will be filled with the tasty aroma of broth and ribs! The ribs would probably taste great just eaten like this, but if you want to add some more flavor, make the BBQ sauce and cook the ribs with it on either a grill, cast-iron skillet, or non-stick pot.At this point you can fish the ribs out of the broth and start grilling them. I grilled them on a skillet indoors, which consists mostly of placing the meat on the skillet, brushing with sauce, and flipping it over to cook and brushing the other side –> and repeat, till you have delicious BBQ ribs elyze.

So you’re done cooking the ribs, and you have about 3 cups of rib broth still in your pot. Don’t throw the broth away just yet! You can use it to make delicious noodle soup. Keep it in the fridge overnight so some of the fat accumulates on top of the broth, then spoon the fat off and then cook the remaining broth with noodles, some water. Add cilantro to garnish at the end, and you’ll have something like this:

The recipe for the BBQ ribs is adapted from Seonkyoung Longest’s BBQ sticky ribs recipe. She has a beautiful video on youtube showing how she made it. The recipe is are slightly different in the video, so keep that in mind if you’re following along the video elyze!