Korean-Style Grilled Baby Back Ribs

Whenever I see baby back ribs on sale, I automatically toss them into my shopping cart. It's such a delicious cut of pork, it tends to be pretty expensive.

On this particular occasion, I was craving Korean food so I made a Korean-style rib and of course, since we're right in the thick of summer, I made them on the grill

Ingredients [serves 4]:
ribs
2 lbs. baby back ribs
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon tamari
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
+ sesame seeds
+ scallions

sauce
¼ cup ketchup
¼ cup hot pepper paste (gochujang)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
½ teaspoon sesame oil

Start by making a dry rub with a little brown sugar, Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru), salt, and pepper.

Give the ribs a good rub down with sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar before sprinkling on the dry rub. To make it easy, do everything on a giant piece of foil.

If you have time to let it marinade overnight, do. Otherwise, wrap the ribs up in a neat little package and then toss onto a low heat grill for 45 minutes to 1 hour (or in a 350F oven). If you have the time, you can cook the ribs super low and slow, but I find that because baby back ribs are lovely and fatty, it doesn't require as much babying, surprisingly.

After an hour, open up the ribs and then place them directly onto the grill grates.

Let the ribs cook long enough to get a decent char.

Plate the ribs up and then garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.

If you're the type of person that needs a sauce, I have an easy one for you. All it requires is tossing the ingredients into a saucepan - ketchup, hot pepper paste, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, and sesame oil - and bringing them to a boil.

I served the ribs up with some spinach & garlic rice (I'll be sharing a recipe soon), green beans with bacon, grilled corn, and some fridge pickles.

The ribs have a lovely balance of salty, savory, and sweet and they have distinctly Korean flavors but also pass as plain ol' delicious barbecue ribs so I'd say they're definitely a crowd pleaser.

Here's the recipe page: