This Easy Slow Cooker Ribs recipe is our favorite way to cook ribs. They literally fall off the bone and treat your mouth to an explosion of tangy flavor!
You can’t go wrong with these crock pot ribs for a summer picnic, a family gathering, or just dinner any day.
They’re crowd pleasing, husband pleasing and kid pleasing. To be honest, it’s the very best way of cooking ribs we’ve tried!
The key to this slow cooker ribs recipe is that there are NO wet ingredients while you’re in the process of cooking ribs.
Simply make a dry rub to coat the spare ribs and place them in the slow cooker standing up.
The juice from the ribs will provide the moisture that is needed to make them mouth watering.
After they’re done in the crock pot, add whatever BBQ sauce you prefer and then broil them under your stove’s broiler for a few minutes or toss them on the grill for that caramelized flavor in the sauce.
This particular dry rib mixture has a combination of sweet from brown sugar and savory from the paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne pepper.
How to Remove Membrane from Ribs
When my husband and I first got married, I tried my hand several times at cooking ribs with no success. They always were too chewy and I just couldn’t even bite through them.
Well, I realized I wasn’t removing the membrane on the back side of the pork rib. It’s a gross job, but if you want amazing crockpot ribs (or if you’re cooking any type of ribs recipe) you just have to do it.
I was going to take several photos of my husband removing the membrane on these pork ribs, but his big arms kind of took over the photos so you can’t see much.
In this photo below you can see that pink fleshy layer and that is the membrane. Try to peel it up a little with a knife or push your finger under it to loosen. Then you just peel away.
You may get lucky and it will peel in several big pieces or you may have some stubborn stuff that only comes on in small pieces. Either way, don’t give up until it’s gone.
Okay, now that we got that little lesson out of the way we can talk more about those mouth watering Easy Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs!
As I mentioned, the key to the flavor of these crock pot ribs is the dry rub mixture. Of course, there may be different seasonings for the dry rub that you prefer. Don’t hesitate to try out a variety of flavors.
To finish off the recipe, I always use Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce, but if you prefer a different barbecue sauce, then give that a try. Play with the recipe, make it your own.
You can pair these slow cooker barbecue ribs with this Creamy Coleslaw or this Bacon Bowtie Pasta Salad and you will have a heavenly meal!
You might want to consider using a slow cooker liner for this dish. There’s no reason to let the dread of cleaning your slow cooker to keep you from using it. You can find them here.
Once you are done cooking and serving, just pull the liner of the pot and throw away. You’ll be left with a totally clean slow cooker with nothing to wash!
Easy Slow Cooker Ribs Recipe:
Ingredients:
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP smoked paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cracked pepper
2 racks of pork ribs (membrane removed)
1/2 cup of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce
How to Make Slow Cooker Ribs:
Mix all dry ingredients.
Rub both sides of ribs with dry rub.
Place ribs in slow cooker and try to stand ribs up and lean against the sides.
Cook on low 6-8 hours.
Remove ribs carefully.
Brush with Barbecue sauce.
Place on baking sheet and broil for 4-5 minutes OR finish cooking on the grill for 10 minutes.
Easy Slow Cooker Ribs
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 TBSP smoked paprika
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp cracked pepper
- 2 racks of pork ribs membrane removed
- 1/2 cup of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce
Instructions
- Mix all dry ingredients.
- Rub both sides of ribs with dry rub.
- Place ribs in slow cooker and try to stand ribs up and lean against the sides.
- Cook on low 6-8 hours.
- Remove ribs carefully.
- Brush with Barbecue sauce.
- Place on baking sheet and broil for 4-5 minutes OR finish cooking on the grill for 10 minutes.
Kevin AKA Trucker Kev says
2 racks fit in that slow cooker?
Do you break apart individually to stand on side of Crock Pot? So when serving not like a slab on plate it seems but more in chunks?
Can you omit cayenne?
Once in broiler after remove brush with sauce again?
Looking forward to trying likes like YUMMERS!
Oanie says
New to this but it looks awesome. Bare with me on ,
the ribs what is the weight of them to fit in my 6 quart slow cooker. Thank you
Charles acree says
Will definitely be trying your recipes