Cowboy Kent Rollins' Pork Ribs Tip For Tender BBQ Without Hours Of Smoking

Flavorful, tender ribs are one of the crowning achievements of skilled barbecuers. However, they can also end up a tough, dry, and overcooked disaster too easily. To ensure your time, money, and hard work doesn't go to waste, it's worth looking to the pros for help. Among them is Cowboy Kent Rollins, a memorable cooking personality with old-school Western style and plenty of experience whipping up down-home favorites. His solution to deliciously tender ribs doesn't require hours of smoking; just a pan, some foil, and the secret ingredient: chicken broth.

There are no sophisticated techniques at play here. Rollins advises home cooks to add the ribs (rib side down) to a pan with roughly 16 ounces of chicken broth per rack. Cover the pan with foil and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (in a closed grill or oven) for around three hours, allowing the liquid to steam the ribs. The relatively low temperature keeps them from overcooking. Once they're fork tender and pulling away from the bone, Rollins finishes them on the grill to develop char and flavor that complements the tender texture.

Like smoking, this method is primarily hands-off, only needing to check on the ribs occasionally to ensure there's still some broth remaining in the pan. However, it requires no special equipment or skills needed to monitor and control temperature. The ribs are also ready to cook in just minutes, instead of the sometimes laborious, time-consuming process required to start up traditional smokers.

To be sure, steaming ribs isn't a trick unique to Kent Rollins. Steamed spareribs are a classic Chinese dim sum dish, where they're tossed in a flavorful marinade and steamed with chili pepper slices and oil. Seasoning is also important in Rollins' recipe. He uses his own brand of dry rub, but any premade or homemade mix that achieves your flavor goals will work.

As valuable as this rib tip can be, it's just one of the cooking rules Rollins lives by. These include practical tips like wrapping thicker cuts in foil before grilling to ensure the interior cooks before the exterior chars, alongside old cowboy-inspired wisdom, such as using only American-made cookware and never washing the coffee pot with soap. And if you're looking for easy side dishes that go insanely well with your barbecue, consider cornbread and follow Rollins' rule to not add sugar, regardless of the argument about whether sugar should be in cornbread.

Making ribs like a cowboy doesn't require spending years on the range, chowing down at the chuckwagon, and eating like they did in the Old West. Just remember the lesson from Cowboy Kent Rollins, a man whose food is as innovative as it is authentic and delicious and steam your ribs in broth for incredibly tender texture and mouthwatering flavor.