Baby Back Ribs Will Be Your Favorite Cut Of Meat When You Add This To The BBQ Sauce

Baby back ribs are a popular choice when it comes to pork ribs because of their juicy, meaty texture and rich, fatty flavor, and they're a blank canvas when it comes to rubs and sauces. Whether you go with spicy, sweet, or tangy, any of those classic BBQ flavors work well on these ribs. We tend to think the best BBQ sauces are balanced in flavor, working in harmony. Enter your new not-so-secret ingredient: Dr Pepper soda. 

This soda boasts having 23 different flavors, but most people find it nutty and peppery, with notes of caramel, cherry, and vanilla. This complexity makes it an ideal addition for your next batch of homemade BBQ sauce, as it adds not only sweetness, but also a peppery zest to complement the robust flavor of baby back ribs.

Adding Dr Pepper to your BBQ sauce is a simple undertaking. As with a simple sweet and tangy BBQ sauce recipe, simply heat all the ingredients in a sauce pot, bring to a boil, and then reduce and simmer. It only takes five minutes for the flavors to come together, but some recipes call for 20 minutes or more — or until it has reached the right consistency. Dr Pepper BBQ sauce sees the main liquid ingredient, like cider vinegar, replaced either partially or entirely by the soda. Alternatively, simply reduce a couple cans of Dr Pepper on the stove top until you have a syrup, then stir in your choice of BBQ sauce and simmer.

Adding Dr Pepper soda to your BBQ sauce isn't the only way to use it for baby back ribs. We previously covered how soda works well to tenderize meat and baby back ribs are no different. Before you get cooking, cover the ribs in Dr Pepper and marinate for 15 minutes up to a few hours. The acidity helps break down connective tissue and fibrous protein, leading to fall-off-the-bone meat. 

There are a few ways to cook baby back ribs with Dr Pepper BBQ sauce. Many people opt to use a dry rub on the ribs, grill them, sauce them toward the end, and then put them back on the grill for about 10 minutes. Alternatively, season and smoke your ribs as you normally would, then add a Dr Pepper braising liquid to finish them. You can also glaze the ribs in your Dr Pepper BBQ sauce when they are done in the smoker.

Maybe it's not grilling season, but you're still craving Dr Pepper BBQ ribs. You can easily make them in the slow cooker or oven. Our three-ingredient crockpot ribs recipe uses coke, but you can swap that for Dr Pepper. Some home chefs opt to dry rub the ribs, fill the bottom of the roasting pan with Dr Pepper, and then roast or steam them on a rack for a peppery flavor infusion. Emeril Lagasse prefers to add BBQ sauce at the final stage of cooking for his oven-baked ribs, and we agree.