Nary was there a non-Carnitas Country Spare Ribs Crockpot recipe perfect for turning your spare ribs into tacos until now. I couldn’t believe when I was searching for country + spare rib + crockpot + tacos that I couldn’t find any simple Mexican-esque crockpot recipes besides Carnitas. Don’t get me wrong. I loooove, loooove, loooove carnitas. But I wanted something different for this recipe. I just wanted to take my country spare ribs and throw them into a crockpot with some Mexican spices (without using barbecue sauce) and then take the meat out of the crockpot to fill a few nice warm corn tortillas.
The only other recipes I could find (besides Carnitas) called for a substantial amount of barbecue sauce or bordered on heading toward Korean or Chinese style ribs. While I like barbecue sauce and I think it normally pairs really well with ribs, I didn’t want BBQ rib meat in a tortilla. I also didn’t want Korean or Chinese. Not this time, anyway. Some other time, a resounding yes.
I searched high and low until I found a very simple recipe (which I thought was from the blog Little Spice Jar) that I used as inspiration for my own recipe below. (In trying to find the recipe I used while making these ribs a few days ago, I lucked out on tracking it down using the search term little + spice + jar + spare + ribs – maybe the recipe wasn’t for spare ribs after all?)
The result of throwing together some spices, a tiny bit of barbecue sauce and equal amounts coconut aminos? A tangy, spicy, fall apart country spare rib that isn’t drowning in barbecue sauce and tastes as delicious wrapped in warm corn tortillas as it does on its own. The next time you buy massive quantities of country spare ribs at Costco, pull out this recipe and prepare to dazzle your tastebuds.
ingredients.
- 2 T. brown sugar
- 1 T kosher salt
- 1 tsp. cayenne powder
- 1 tsp. ancho chili powder
- 2 tsp. dried oregano
- 1 tsp. chili powder
- 1 tsp. ground white pepper
- 1 tsp. smoked paprika
- 3 and ½ lbs country style boneless ribs
- ¼ c. bottled bbq sauce (or to taste)
- ¼ c. soy sauce or coconut aminos (or to taste)
- minced onions (for serving)
- tortillas or taco shells (for serving)
directions.
- Pour the soy sauce and bbq sauce on bottom of crockpot.
- Mix together the spices and rub the spice mixture onto ribs. Try to get the mixture on every open inch of the ribs if possible. Place ribs in crockpot fat-side up.
- Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours (but I really suggest 8/low). Serve immediately with minced onions on top of some warm corn tortillas if you just can’t wait to eat this delicious pork. At this point, you should have big chunks of pork that break apart when you try to grab it out of the crockpot.
- Otherwise, pull the ribs out of the liquid mixture and reserve about a cup of liquid. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- When you’re ready to make yourself some tacos, put the meat until a small saucepan and add the reserved sauce. (The grease/fat had solidified at the top and I pulled that off and threw it out.) Re-heat, covered, over medium-low heat. Once warm, serve with minced onions on top of some warm corn tortillas.
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 