Ribs are one of those foods that always intimidated me, and while I liked them, I was never brave enough to cook them for the first few years I was married. Then, one day, there was a huge sale on ribs at our local store, and having no better idea for dinner, I bought them. On the drive home, I realized that I didn’t have a grill at the time or a even a recipe for ribs, so after some online research, a slow cooker recipe was born. It turned out great and we’ve been cooking these ever since!
This is one of several variations that I make, and it might be my favorite. Adjust spices and sweetener to fit your own taste…
Slow Cooker Ribs Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 lbs beef ribs (or pork)
- 1 medium onion
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 15 oz tomato sauce
- 6 oz tomato paste
- 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
- 2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp liquid smoke
- ¼ cup honey or molasses (or molasses or a dash of stevia, optional)
Instructions
- Cut the ribs into 3-4 rib sections so they will fit in the Crock-Pot.
- Dice the onion and place it at the bottom of the Crock-Pot.
- Sprinkle the ribs with chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper and put them in the Crock-Pot on top of the onions.
- Ina small bow, mix together the tomato sauce, tomato paste, vinegar, Worcestershire, liquid smoke, and sweetener if using and then pour evenly over the ribs.
- Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until tender.
- Toss in sauce before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
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Ever barbecued in your Crock-Pot? How did it turn out? Share your recipe below!
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Can you cook these on high for half the time or is the low setting better?
They will probably be slightly more tender on low the whole time, but you could do high half the time and speed up the process…
Made these today! They were FABULOUS!!!! So good and made the house smell great. My husband was actually excited about dinner tonight!
Love it! So glad you enjoyed them!
Made these for dinner tonight. So so easy to get everything in the crock pot this morning, then have dinner ready and waiting after running errands in the late afternoon! They were delicious, and I can’t wait to try with a roast for some shredded bbq beef. Thanks!
I can’t wait to try this for dinner this week!! Love slow cooker recipes!! 🙂
I never made ribs this way, but I think this weekend I’ll try it. Thanks for the recipe and great post. I’ve been using grass fed beef in all my dishes ever since I found out the benefits of it. You should try it in one of your recipes. Just check out the La Cense Beef website. I’ll let you know how my ribs come out.
I also cook with grass fed beef almost exclusively. We get it from a local farmer and it is wonderful! I’ve stopped adding “grassfed” to every post though, as I got some complaints from people who weren’t able to find grassfed.
This is dinner tomorrow night. So excited!
I’m making these tonight! They’ve been in the crockpot a few hours already and smell sooooo good!
Thanks for the recipe. There must have been a sale because my husband came home with some yesterday. Instead of letting him grill them or put them in the smoker I wanted to find a recipe for the crockpot . So this comes at the perfect time. Do you know if there is a liquid smoke that does not contain MSG? I think liquid smoke is genius but my husband is highly sensitive to MSG so sadly I threw it out. Thanks 🙂
You can make your own liquid smoke fairly easily if you’ve got a smoker. Just google it!
I was going to suggest making it too. I’ll post a recipe on that soon!
These sound great! I’ve been doing pork country style ribs in the crockpot adobo style. Equal parts soy sauce and rice wine vinegar (about a cup), a few cloves of minced garlic, a teaspoon of fresh minced ginger and a bay leaf. Toss it all in the crockpot over the ribs and let it cook until tender. Works with any type of meat. You can serve it with the sauce, but I find it doesn’t need it. I also don’t like to ingest that much soy, but if you just use it to cook you eat very little of it.
I throw the bones in my “broth bag” in the freezer and when I’ve collected enough odds and ends I make bone broth- no waste!
This sounds good, we are going to try it out tomorrow!