Slow Low Oven Ribs

When you live with a Southern man, there are certain words you can say that are pretty much guaranteed to make him light up like a Christmas tree.  Grits.  Fried okra.  Fried peach pies from The Varsity in Atlanta.  (This last one is a pure tease, since we live about 15 hours from the Varsity.)  And if all else fails...ribs.  He does love 'em.  And while you can always go the grill route with ribs, as with my dad's famous Coca-Cola Ribs, my other favorite, less complicated and fool-proof way is to cook them low and slow right in the oven.

This recipe is from the delightful cookbook Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook, and if you have a long lazy day that you'd like to have end with some tender, juicy ribs, here's your recipe.  You make a quick and simple sauce of tomatoes, onion, garlic, maple syrup, soy sauce and red pepper, and then pour half of it over some country style pork ribs.  Cover the pan with foil and pop it in the oven for about three hours.  Take a nice long nap.  Take the foil off and pour the other half of the sauce on, and cook the ribs for another hour or so.  Your sauce will get nice and thick and your ribs will have slow-cooked into tender wonderfulness.

Now if you serve these ribs with some cheese grits on the side, it will almost make up for not living next door to the Varsity.  Almost.

Slow Low Oven Ribs, from Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook

• Two 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes with juice


• 1/4 cup chopped sweet onion


• 2 garlic cloves, minced


• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes


• 1/2 cup maple syrup


• 2 tablespoons soy sauce


• 4 bay leaves


• 4 pounds country style pork ribs


• Salt and pepper

1. Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic and red pepper in a small saucepan and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.  Stir in maple syrup and soy sauce.
2. Preheat oven to 300 and line a 13x9 inch baking dish with foil.  Place the bay leaves in the bottom of the dish.
3. Season the ribs with salt and pepper and lay them in the baking dish.  Pour half of the sauce over them, turning them a few times to coat them with the sauce.  Cover the pan tightly with foil.
4. Bake for three hours, then remove the foil, pour the remaining sauce over and bake for an additional hour or so until the sauce is thick and the ribs are tender.
5. Put the ribs on a serving platter and let stand for 15 minutes.  Tilt the pan and ladle off the fat from the pan juices, and then pour the pan sauce over the ribs and serve.

Print this!

Grandpa's Coca-Cola Ribs

Here are my adorable parents, who are just about to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. With all their friends. And all our giant extended family. At my house. Please pray for good weather.

Anyway, my mom has always been an amazing, phenomenal, extraordinary cook. As a matter of fact, when I did the "All About Me" section on this blog and described myself as a self-taught cook, more than one person who has known me for a while pointed out that I actually had a pretty fantastic teacher, otherwise known as My Mother. Totally true! I probably should have mentioned that. At any rate, she was and still is a virtuoso in the kitchen. Fresh-baked bread, home-made pasta, chocolate mousse cake, veal Oscar, marinated mozzarella, the best scones in the entire world, I could go on and on. My dad...well, he made some pretty great scrambled eggs over the years, but he was mainly relegated to kitchen clean-up crew along with the rest of us.

However. Over the past few years, I have had more than one great meal at their house, and complimented my mom on whatever it was, and she said these four words that were not usually ever strung together in my childhood home:

"Your father made it."

Macaroni and cheese. Shredded beef barbecue sandwiches. And lately, these ribs that are the sweet and spicy kind that literally fall off the bones as you eat them.

Dad? Dad, is that you?

So when he made them for dinner over Memorial Day weekend, I thought that's it, the world must know about this. And with that, here they are, the world's most scrumptious and tender ribs, from the world's most scrumptious and tender dad.

Grandpa's Coca-Cola Ribs

• 4 lbs Pork Ribs
• 3 cups Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper
• 3 cups Ketchup
• 1 cup Packed Dark Brown Sugar
• 6 tablespoons Chili Powder
• 4 tablespoons Ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons Dry mustard
• 1 tablespoons Ground cinnamon

1. Transfer the ribs to a large non-reactive glass or ceramic dish pour 2 cups of Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper over them. Reserve the third cup of the soda for a sauce to be made later. Let the ribs marinate, tightly covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated, overnight.

2. Pour the remaining 1 cup of soda into a blender or food processor and add the ketchup, brown sugar, chili powder, pepper, dry mustard, and cinnamon. Mix until smooth and well blended.

3. Put the ribs in a roasting pan that has been coated with cooking spray, brush with the sauce, and roast covered in a 225 oven for about 2 1/2 hours until very tender. (Can be done the day before. )

4. To finish, grill over high heat, basting with the uncooked sauce until the outside is crispy, about 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile simmer the unused sauce for about 20 minute until a little thick.

Click here for printable recipe