Smoked Baby Back Ribs are a classic comfort food that are full of flavor and is a must for your next get together or cookout. Use our homemade rib dry rub and homemade bbq sauce – serve with cornbread and coleslaw for the perfect meal!

Best Ever Smoked Baby Back Ribs

This recipe for pork ribs is one of my favorites of all-time!! It took me a while to get the method down just right and I am so happy with it (this method would also work well with spare ribs). The meat falls away from the bone just right (it doesn’t just completely fall apart), it is tender but delicious and I cannot wait for you to try it! Serve with Smoked Corn on the Cob, Smoked Mashed Potatoes and Smoked Asparagus for a complete summer meal. And if you don’t have a smoker I highly suggest these Oven Bake Ribs – similar method just in the oven!

Why You Will Love This Recipe 

1. Tender: We nailed the texture here! Not a messy completely-fall-apart, but also not hard to eat.  The meat falls away with little effort, is moist and so flavorful!
2. Easy: Once you get your prep done, all you need to do is spray the ribs every so often and turn the temp up gradually! No worries about having to take off the ribs and wrap them in foil – we are keeping it simple!
3. Flavor: that pork rub is our all-time favorite and we use it in so many of our recipes!

Smoked Baby Back Ribs Ingredients

• baby back ribs: we usually use two racks of ribs – leftovers are amazing!
• worcestershire sauce + yellow mustard: these are both rubbed all over the ribs and then the dry rub is added and together they make a paste.
• One batch of dry rub: I absolutely love our homemade dry rub for ribs which is a combination of kosher salt, ground black pepper, paprika, lemon pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and a little bit of cayenne.
• Mop Ingredients: some water, apple juice and apple cider vinegar are combined to create a mop that is sprayed all over the ribs periodically while smoking – it helps keep them moist and delicious.
• barbecue sauce: feel free to use any kind of bbq sauce you want – we do have a delicious homemade bbq sauce too!

Internal Temperature of Pork

Pork needs to be cook to a minimum internal temperature of 145 degrees F to be considered safe to eat BUT if you took your ribs off the smoker at that temp they would be a little tough.  The longer you cook them the more tender they become. We recommend an internal temp between 190-203 degrees F.  The closer you get to 203 the more fall-off-the-bone they will become so that is personal preference how long you want to let them cook.

Smoked Baby Back Rib Side Dishes

Wondering what to serve with Smoked Baby Back Ribs – here are a few suggestions:

• Smoked Baked Beans
• Spicy Purple Cabbage Coleslaw 
• Fresh Lemon Pasta
• Gluten-Free Cornbread

Best Smokers 

• Pellet Smoker: Traeger Pro 575 (the 780 is great too, it is just a little bit bigger)
• Electric Smoker: If you are looking for a starter electric smoker that is high quality, but also not the most expensive smoker ever made, I would recommend this one.  We used it for 5 years with no issues and the quality of smoking is fantastic. We have recently upgraded to a Traeger and love that a well.

Traeger Smoked Ribs

We tested these on a Traeger and they turned out absolutely delicious! Of course, if you have a different brand of pellet smoker or pellet grill the recipe will translate just fine.

How to Make Smoked Baby Back Ribs

We started with 2 racks of baby back ribs.  Before you even begin, you need to remove the membrane (the thin layer of skin or connective tissue on the bone side of the ribs).

Remove and discard.

Pat dry with a clean paper towel.

Rub all over with worcestershire sauce.

Rub all over with yellow mustard.

Rub all over with the dry rub.

It is recommend to wrap in plastic wrap and then let sit overnight in the fridge. You CAN skip that step and just go straight to the smoker.

Place on the smoker directly on the grill grates (left side if using a pellet smoker as that is where it is the hottest) and close.

Spray with your Mop every 45-60 minutes. Make this quick so you don’t let out too much heat.

Raise the temp per the recipe card below.

At the end remove the ribs and brush all over with bbq sauce of your choice then place back on the smoker at 350 degrees F. to let that bbq sauce become sticky and delicious.

Enjoy!

Recipe FAQs

• Worcestershire sauce: If you are concerned with Whole30/Paleo simply omit this step.
• Mop: Continue to spray the ribs with the mop every 45-60 minutes throughout the cooking time.
• Letting sit overnight:  If you forgot to do this the night before or you just simply don’t want to do this, you can skip this part and the ribs will turn out just fine (I have done it many times). But if you want the best results, letting it sit in the rub overnight is the best way to go!
• Internal Temp: Pork needs to be cook to a minimum internal temperature of 145 degrees F to be considered safe to eat BUT if you took your ribs off the smoker at that temp they would be a little tough.  The longer you cook them the more tender they become. We recommend an internal temp between 190-203 degrees F.  The closer you get to 203 the more fall-off-the-bone they will become so that is personal preference how long you want to let them cook.
• here is a great recipe for how to make BBQ ribs in an Instant Pot! Always fun to try out different kitchen gadgets!

Other smoked recipes you might like:

• Smoked Pork Shoulder
• Instant Pot BBQ Ribs 
• Double Smoked Ham 
• Easy Oven Baked Ribs

Made this recipe and loved it?! We would love it if you would take a minute and leave a star rating and review – it is also helpful if you made any substitutions or changes to the recipe to share that as well. THANK YOU!

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Originally published October 2016.