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The Best Dry Rub For Ribs – a homemade spice blend that is perfect for making ribs. Whether you are smoking, grilling, or even slow cooking these will give your ribs so much flavor and be perfect every time!
My family absolutely loves ribs! It can be Instant Pot Country Style Ribs or full on starting up the smoker and making Smoked Baby Back Ribs. It doesn’t really matter, the smokey tender pork is always a favorite at my house. This rub has been a staple for many years, and we use it all types of pork all year round.
Over the years I have experimented with a few different rubs. This Best Dry Rub is great for when making just about any meat. You can use it on pork ribs, turkey, chicken or even beef. But today I have my favorite baby back ribs dry rub!
When you are making ribs, you need a good dry rub. Doesn’t matter if you are making baby back ribs, country style ribs or even spare ribs. The first step in making ribs it to have a really good spice blend that you rub into the meat. This rub is the perfect blend of sweet and savory to really bring out the best in whatever ribs you are making. There are a couple ingredients in there you wouldn’t expect, but they just bring it all together and give it that flavor punch you are looking for.
Best Dry Rub For Pork Ribs
When you are making pork ribs, you want to have a good blend of spices. Most dry rubs start off with sugar. The sugar not only brings out the sweetness in the pork, but it also caramelizes with the heat and is what gets it that nice dark crust. When you are smoking ribs, that bark on the outside is exactly what you are going for.
The other spices like smoked paprika and chipotle powder give it that smokey flavor. So even if you aren’t actually using a smoker, you can get that flavor in the background. And the secret ingredient you aren’t expecting is allspice. It really just give it that extra depth of flavor. There isn’t a lot in there and you could never know it is there, it just rounds everything out.
How to Make A Dry Rub
- Mix all of the spices in a bowl.
- Store in an air tight container until ready to use.
Dry Rubs are best if used within a couple months. I usually make a big batch of it at the beginning of the summer and store in the pantry for us to use all summer long. Because the spices are blended together they seem to lose their flavor faster than when stored normally, which is the only reason to use it up within a couple of months. It doesn’t actually go bad that fast.
When making a dry rub, you really can mix up the herbs and spices to come up with your own blend. The base of sugars and salt it what remains the most constant, and then you can add more or less of the other spices to come up with what you like best. When you try ribs at different places, the “pit master” is the expert who blends the spices. So you really never have the same ribs anywhere else.
This rub is really good for ribs, but you can use it on pretty much any form of pork. It is great on grilled pork chops or rub on a pork shoulder that you turn into pulled pork. Any pork you are making that you would like barbecue sauce on, this is great to use!
Other Barbecue Recipes to Try
- Instant Pot Pulled Pork
- Grilled Turkey Tenderloin
- Smoked Tri Tip
- Grilled Chicken with Peach Barbecue Sauce
- Grilled Chicken Thighs
- Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Best Sides with Ribs
The Best Dry Rub For Ribs
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup chili powder
- 1/4 cup kosher salt
- 2 Tablespoon chipotle powder
- 2 Tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 Tablespoon black pepper
- 1 Tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 Tablespoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon allspice
Instructions
- Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl until well combined.
- Store in an tight container.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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We have been grilling ribs alot lately and I always buy rubs. I love being able to make this at home! Great flavors.
I’m thinking of grilling steaks and I think I’ll try this on them!
We make ribs all year round. I love them! We will try this rub next time!
This rub sounds fantastic!! I can’t wait to try it!
mmm..I can’t wait to try this rub! We LOVE ribs!
The best kind of rub! Love how simple it is to make and how I had everything in my cabinet to make it!
Such a great recipe and easy to make too! Looking forward to enjoying this on some ribs for dinner tonight, indeed!
SO much flavor packed into this!!