Ribs are up there in terms of food favorites for me. If they were a little more inexpensive and didn’t take so much time to cook, I think I’d be housing a full rack at least once a week, easy.

Since the hubs is fabulous at cooking with the smoker, I’ve had my share of delicious ribs – my favorite being my “birthday ribs” I specially requested, which were smoked with cherry bbq sauce from my home state of Michigan. Holy YUM, I love ’em.

But, I also love trying out new flavors – so when we had some leftover racks from Costco (have y’all tried their ribs? we think they’re pretty tasty) – we decided to try something new.

Dave found Jeff Mauro’s take-out style Chinese rib recipe and we both went “OooooOOooOOOooooOOOoOohhhhhhhhh, yes please!” We tweaked just a couple o’ things from the original recipe and it turned out pretty darn good. Honestly, it might be my new favorite.

I think it’d be a fun twist if you’re throwing a Memorial Day BBQ to give the part-ay a little something different from yer normal BBQ spread.

I just developed a rib-rating system, just right now – so I give this recipe a 5 out of 5 ribbies. Get AT this.

Cook Time: 6 Hours
Marinating Time: Overnight ideal, at least 3 hours
Servings: 4

Ingredients
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tbs dark brown sugar
2 tbs honey, plus a bit extra to finish
1 tbs five-spice powder
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
2 racks baby back ribs

First things first – if the ribs haven’t been stripped of the membrane, you’ll need to do that. To do this you need to get a knife under the membrane on the underside of the ribs. Once you have a slit in the membrane, use a paper towel to help you grip the membrane and just peel the whole thing off. This piece is chewy and keeps the flavor out so you really do need to remove it. Then trim any excess fat.

Next to make the marinade, mix together the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, honey, five-spice powder, garlic and ginger. Add all but 1/2 cup of the marinade into a large dish or large zip lock bag, and marinate overnight if possible – or at least three hours.

When you’re ready to cook, get your smoker to 225 degrees with the chips of your choosing, but Dave used hickory and it was great.

Remove the ribs from the marinade and place on the smoker. Dave uses the “3,2,1” method when smoking ribs, for the first three hours cook the ribs unwrapped, for the next two hours smoke them wrapped in foil, and for the last hour smoke them unwrapped and baste with some of the marinade previously set aside.

The ribs are done when the internal temperature reaches 190 degrees and you have a nice bark formed. We also love this resource from Amazing Ribs to help determine doneness – especially for beginners.

We served this with some sauteed bok choy and these crazy good Spicy Chinese Potatoes from the Wanderlust Kitchen. Fab-u-lous!