My easy rib tips recipe gets you tender and flavorful meat that’s juicy and fall-off-the-bone. I show you how to trim them and prep them, and how to cook them perfectly.
This is the best way to cook rib tips whether you bought them already cut into little ribs at the store or you have them leftover from trimming a rack of spare ribs. They get a dry rub for maximum flavor and are slowly cooked in the oven for tender end results. Finish them off under the broiler or in the air fryer for some nicely caramelized char.
Scroll down to read more about what ribs tips are and how to prep and cook them or click here to jump straight down to the recipe.
Video: Cooking Rib Tips
What Are Rib Tips?
Rib tips, also referred to as rib ends, are the result of trimming a rack of pork ribs. They’re typically trimmed off of the spare rib cut when cutting to make St. Louis style ribs. This section doesn’t contain long rib bones, but it does have some small pieces of bone and some chunks of cartilage. They’re therefore known for being fun to nibble on. Like juicy St. Louis Ribs, the rib tips are mostly that darker, juicier pork meat that benefits from slow-cooking.
How To Cut Rib Tips
In the picture below, what we have is a spare rib cut of pork above a rack of St. Louis-Style ribs. The rack of St. Louis ribs is literally just the spare ribs trimmed of a strip from along the top.
If you look at the picture below, you see the rack of spare ribs that has been cut into the St. Louis rack on the bottom, and a strip of rib tips on the top. So then, the rib tips are what is leftover when you cut St. Louis ribs from a rack of spare ribs.
Okay, so once you have the strip of rib tips trimmed from the rack, you can cut them into pieces. You’ll find that sometimes there are bigger bones. I tend to save those for soup or stock. Then cut the rest into bite-sized pieces. There’s chunks of cartilage and bone in there, so you want to aim for one piece of that in each segment of meat that you cut.
What I usually do when buying spare ribs is to cut them into the rack of St. Louis ribs and the set of rib tips. Then I will make one for dinner that night, and freeze the other for another day. The recipe below is what I do when I am cooking rib tips on their own. If you’re cooking rib tips and St. Louis ribs at the same time, stay tuned for my spare ribs recipe next week, which is adjusted in amounts for doing both at the once.
Difference Between Rib Tips and Riblets
Note that pork riblets (of Applebee’s fame) are actually slightly different. If you look again at the picture above that shows the wider St. Louis rack with the rib tips trimmed off of it, you’re basically seeing a thin vertical strip of meat above a thicker vertical strip of meat. As noted, it’s the top thinner strip that is cut into rib tips and the thick strip of meat below that is a rack of St. Louis-Style Ribs. Sometimes, a couple of ribs are trimmed off of one or both of the sides of that St. Louis rack, so that the rack has a more even appearance. Those ribs trimmed off of the left and right sides of the rack are the riblets.
Having said all that, since rib tips and riblets come from essentially the same cut of meat, they can be used interchangeably in recipes.
How To Cook Rib Tips
For this pork rib tips recipe, you can either buy 1.5-2 pounds of rib tips from the grocery store or butcher, or you can cut them yourself from a rack of spare ribs as I showed above. When I get spare ribs, I often make them into two meals, one is the St. Louis rib meal, and then one is a snacky rib tips meal.
Season the cut up rib tips with my delicious sweet and smoky rib dry rub with brown sugar, smoked paprika, garlic powder, and more (it’s in the recipe below). Wrap the seasoned rib tips in aluminum foil and put on a baking sheet. Bake at 300°F for one and a half hours. Open the foil up to expose the ribs more to the heat, and bake for another one and a half hours.
Once they’re cooked, you can discard the foil and any accumulated liquid. Brush the rib tips with 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce all over. I love this homemade smoky barbecue sauce, but you can use your favorite store-bought sauce if you prefer. Note that I don’t like a lot of sauce, so that’s why I’ve only called for 1/2 cup. If you like yours saucier, you can use more, or have more on the side for dipping.
You can finish the rib tips under the broiler or in the air fryer for a few minutes, turn over, and cook a couple minutes more. You just want to get a little bit of a char on them at the end. Note that I find it more difficult to finish these on the grill than I do other ribs because they are so small and can fall through the grates.
More Great Rib Recipes
Browse my full collection of delicious pork recipes or try out some of my other pork and beef rib recipes below.
- Country-Style Pork Ribs
- Air Fryer Ribs
- How to Make Short Ribs
- Oven-Baked Ribs Recipe
- Grilled Beef Ribs
Podcast Episode: Making Rib Tips
Listen to me explain briefly about how to make these rib tips, along with some other great tips, by clicking the play button below:
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
Print
Rib Tips Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 hours 10 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
DESCRIPTION
My easy rib tips recipe gets you tender and flavorful meat that’s juicy and fall-off-the-bone. I show you how to trim them and prep them, and how to cook them perfectly.
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 1 and 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp. mustard powder
- 1/4 tsp. onion powder
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 2 lbs. of rib tips
- 1/2 of BBQ sauce
Instructions
- Mix up the dry rub by combining the brown sugar, paprika, salt, garlic powder, mustard powder, onion powder, and pepper.
- Season the cut up rib tips with the rib rub. Wrap in aluminum foil and put on pan.
- Bake at 300°F for 1.5 hours.
- Open foil up and bake another 1.5 hours.
- Discard foil and any accumulated liquid. Brush ribs with 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce all over. Finish them to get a little char in the oven or the air fryer.
- Under the broiler: Arrange the cooked and sauced rib tips on a broiler pan. Set the pan so that they’re about 6 inches from the broiler elements. Broil until dark spots appear on top, 5-6 minutes. Flip over and continue to cook until dark spots appear on the tops, another 4-5 minutes.
In the Air fryer: Arrange the cooked and sauced rib tips in the air fryer (it’s fine if they’re piled up a bit). Air fry at 400°F for 6 minutes. Open air fryer and move rib tips around. Continue to cook until they have dark spots in many places, about 3-4 more minutes.
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