Crock Pot Ribs

I'm currently on a mission to use all the meat we have in our freezer. We tend to stock up when we see a sale & now both freezers are full. This week I used frozen meatballs, pork chops & this half rack of ribs.

Its been rather cold & wet (if not snowy) here in Minneapolis so we didn't really have any desire to use the grill or the smoker. Then Matt mentioned seeing Slow Cooker Ribs on Dough See Dough. I have to admit I was a little hesitant about how ribs in a crock pot would turn out but since I've been really loving the easy of crock pot cooking lately I decided to give it a chance. We stuck pretty close to Dough See Dough's method of cooking the ribs but didn't use her recipe for the sauce.

These ribs were surprisingly good. The meat is super tender, falling right off the bone. Of course, they don't taste anything like our smoked ribs but they are a great winter option for us. Part of the reason they tasted so good was the barbecue sauce we used. Recently, some friends of our gave us a couple bottles of Howling Wolf barbecue sauce made by their family in Wisconsin.

(photo from Howling Wolf)

We used the Cranberry Orange Sauce on this batch of ribs, the mixture of cranberry & orange just seems right for fall. It has such a wonderful sweet & tangy flavor with just the right amount of heat. We love that fact the these sauces contain no high fructose corn syrup as we are trying to avoid eating foods containing it. We're excited to try their original sauce next. You can buy these sauces through the Howling Wolf store on Etsy.

Crock Pot Ribs
(This recipe is for a half rack of ribs which we find the perfect serving for two of us. If you want to make more ribs increase the sauce mixture so you have enough to almost cover the ribs.)

1/2 rack baby back ribs
dry barbecue rub of choice
1 c barbecue sauce (we used Howling Wolf Cranberry Orange)
1/2 c dark beer (we used Sessions Black)
2 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Cut the ribs to separate them. Massage with dry barbecue rub. Place on a baking sheet & bake for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the barbecue sauce, beer & Worcestershire sauce together. Pour into the crock pot. Take the ribs out of the oven & place into the crock pot. Turn to coat all side.

Cook on low in the crock pot for 6 hours or until the meat is falling off the bone. Turn once during cooking time.


Serves 2

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