Craving ribs, but don't have three hours or a bbq grill on hand? Try this quick and easy recipe for baby back ribs, and you'll be chowing down in no time!

You don't have to sacrifice tenderness, juiciness, or rich, complex flavors just because you don't have a smoker, grill, or hours to spend slow-roasting these ribs. By kicking up the heat and using both a dry rub and a sauce, you can have all the impact of slow cooked ribs with half the effort in half the time.

Step 1: Ingredients

This recipe and cooking time is for one 1 pound slab of baby back ribs. Cooking time may vary for other varieties of ribs! Of course you should make your own rub and sauce, but using something pre-packaged is part of what makes this so quick and easy. Adding liquid smoke to the sauce (or finding one with it) will add that smoky quality you'll be missing from not cooking in the great outdoors.

For this recipe you'll need:

1lb ribs
dry rub
bbq sauce

I personally prefer Salt Lick Original Dry Rub which is cayenne pepper based.
To make your own, combine 2 parts salt to one part ground black pepper, and one part cayenne.

A bbq sauce with tomatoes in it is going to burn, and I like the charred quality this gives the recipe. If you do not, avoid using any tomato-based bbq sauce! My current personal fave is 1849 BBQ sauce, which pushes me to the limit of the heat I can take.
It combines tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, brown sugar, water, molasses, liquid smoke, garlic, onion, lemon juice, salt, and chili pepper. I think the amount of chili pepper is what's key to the initial smack of heat you get when you dig into these ribs.

Step 2: Rub

Preheat your oven to 400F(200C).

Rinse and pat dry your ribs. Get them as close to room temp as you can before cooking.

Rub both sides of the ribs with the dry rub. You can also substitute simple salt and pepper if you'd prefer!

Lay ribs fat-side up on a sheet of aluminum foil and seal shut.

Bake for one hour.

Step 3: Sauce

After one hour, remove the ribs from the oven.

Open the foil, and sauce both sides of the ribs.

Leave the foil open and return to the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Brush with the sauce one last time before serving if you like!

Now how easy was that!!