Dr. Pepper Pork Ribs

I'm not usually a fan of making pork ribs - they take a lot of effort to cook, and even more to eat. But when I heard that you could marinate them in the nectar of the gods, Dr. Pepper, I knew I'd eventually have to try. What better time than now, for this blog?

I found a few recipes online, all of which had the same basic idea, so I decided to improvise a little bit.

I bought two racks of ribs, laid them in a casserole dish, and poured about 1L of Dr. Pepper over them. It should be enough to fully cover the ribs. Throw in a little salt, give it a stir and then let the marinating begin.

*I took a picture of the marination station, but it didn't turn out. Trust me, it looked as delicious as raw meat floating in brown syrupy soda could.

So after 2-ish hours of marinating, I took the ribs out. Some recipes called to marinate overnight, but I don't have time for that, I'm hungry now! Plus I can imagine the ribs would've been more candy than meat at that point. 

After the ribs were removed from the marinade, I covered them in a dry rub including seasoned salt and cajun spice. I put the ribs back in the casserole dish with about 1/4 of the leftover Dr. Pepper marinade, added water, covered the dish with tinfoil, put the ribs in a 300 degree oven, and went to work for 4 hours.

This was waiting for me when I got back:

The ribs turned out amazingly. They had a beautiful brown colour, the crust was sticky and crunchy, and the meat came right off when pulled apart. The sweetness of the Dr. Pepper was still there, and worked really well with the cajun spice.

Anyways, Voila! Here is the final product

I really enjoyed the simplicity of this recipe. There was no need to par-boil the ribs because of the marinade and the slow cooking. This could easily be adapted to feed a large group at a family gathering or some other event. 

Hope you enjoyed my first meal. Please leave any comments or recipe ideas you might have below!