Although I am a huge fan of vegetarian cooking, I am a true cave woman at heart! Nothing makes me happier than throwing a slab of meat or a burger onto the barbecue. Some of my favourite carnivorous meals can take a while to cook though, so once again I’ve turned to my Instant Pot to save some time and believe it or not, the Instant Pot can make a couple of racks of ribs in about 30 minutes. I used to spend almost a day on ribs by brining them overnight and slow cooking them on a low heat in the oven for hours … no thank you, I will not be doing that anymore. Using the instant pot, ribs can literally be picked up at the grocery store on the way home from work and put on the table for dinner in about an hour.
I have adapted my tried and true rib recipe for the Instant Pot and it is awesome – so easy to make and you can finish them off either in the oven under the broiler or on the barbecue. If you’re thinking of doing this on a week night, I would suggest making the spice-rub ahead of time so that you save time prepping.
Weeknight Instant Pot Ribs
Ingredients:
4 lbs. pork ribs
1 batch of spice rub*
½ cup pineapple juice or other fruit juice
¼ cup water
1 bottle of your favourite barbecue sauce
*Rib spice-rub:
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp each: cumin, chili powder, white pepper, hot paprika, chili flakes, Cajun seasoning
Prepare ribs by cutting into 4-5 bone sections and trim any excess fat and the membrane on the underside of the ribs. Massage the spice rub into the sections, front and back. Place the instant pot trivet in the bottom of the pot and add the juice and water into the bottom. Working from the outside in, carefully stand the ribs up, working in a circle, until they all fit into the pot; with 4 pounds, this should fit into the pot easily with a little bit of wiggle room.
Close and seal the lid and make sure the valve is in sealing position, not venting. Using the manual dial, set the timer to twenty minutes. It will take about 10-12 minutes for the pot to get to pressure, but once it’s ready, you will see the numbers counting down. When the timer is up, you can hit the valve from seal to vent and release all of the steam. Carefully remove the lid and transfer the ribs to a tray. At this point, you can finish the ribs in the oven or on the BBQ. Whichever way you choose, coat the ribs with BBQ sauce and carefully broil, flipping and re-basting until the sauce has caramelized somewhat and becomes nice and sticky. This process will go quickly and because of the sugar content in most BBQ sauces, they burn quickly too, so keep watch. Remove from the grill, serve and watch them disappear.
Shannon Yacyshyn’s Kitchen Confessions column runs every second Thursday in the Red Deer Advocate.