Instant Pot Beef Back Ribs with a dry rub and made in the Instant Pot using apple cider vinegar as the liquid. This summertime favorite is easy from start to finish and delicious.
These ribs are finished in the oven for a crispy texture and coated with your favorite BBQ sauce.
RELATED: Instant Pot BBQ Beef Brisket
Preparing the Ribs
To prepare the ribs, you will need to remove the membrane from the back of the ribs. It is easy to do this by finding the thickest part of the membrane and peeling it away from the ribs.
Using a paper towel to grip the membrane makes it a little easier to keep ahold of. After removing the membrane, rub the dry ingredients over the ribs and cover to refrigerate for at least an hour. This gives the ribs a chance to absorb the spices.
The longer the ribs sit with the seasonings the more flavorful they will be! After cooking the ribs in the Instant Pot, remove them and lay them on a foil-lined baking sheet.
Baste the desired amount of BBQ sauce of your choice on the ribs and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
RELATED: Instant Pot Baby Back Ribs
Accessories Needed for Instant Pot Ribs:
Instant Pot - 6 quarts at least so that the ribs will fit.
Trivet (Or balled up aluminum foil to elevate ribs from liquid)
Ingredients in Beef Back Ribs
- Beef back rib rack - with the membrane removed
- Paprika
- Onion Powder
- Garlic Powder
- Granulated Sugar
- Dry Mustard
- Cayenne Pepper
- Salt & Pepper
- Apple cider vinegar
- BBQ sauce - your choice!
Instant Pot Ribs
One thing I love about my Instant Pot is its ability to make meat super tender and fall off the bone in very little time. These ribs are pressure cooked for just 25 minutes and they're so tender!
To make these ribs crispy, they do require oven time to reach the much-desired crispiness when eating ribs. I use apple cider vinegar as the liquid for the ribs versus water for a very good reason - water tends to make meat bland when pressure cooking.
By adding the apple cider vinegar, the flavors infuse into the meat instead of taking flavors away. In fact, I rarely use water as the liquid of choice in most of my recipes!
This Instant Pot Beef Back Ribs recipe does use apple cider vinegar as the liquid of choice.
If you're not a fan of a strong vinegar flavor, swap out some of the apple cider vinegar for beef broth, water, or even alcohol. You want to make sure you have one cup of liquid for the pot to come to pressure. You can choose your combination of liquids for this step.
RELATED: Instant Pot Root Beer Pulled Pork
Make More Ribs
Have more than 1 rack of ribs to make? No problem! You can fit more than one rack of ribs in the Instant Pot and you don't even have to adjust the cooking time!!
Of course, you will want to double the ingredients to make 2 racks at once to maximize the flavor but no additional steps! You don't need to double the liquid in the pot however, that will stay the same! So double all the ingredients except for the liquids that create the pressure in the Instant Pot.
RELATED: Instant Pot Beef Barbacoa Tacos
📖 Recipe
Instant Pot Beef Back Ribs
Beef Back Ribs with a dry rub and made in the Instant Pot with apple cider vinegar. These ribs are finished in the oven with BBQ sauce to add a crispy texture
Ingredients
- 1 beef rib rack, membrane removed
- 2 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- ½ teaspoon cayenne
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar (or ¼ cup apple cider vinegar and ¾ cup water for less vinegar taste)
- BBQ Sauce, of choice
Instructions
- Remove membrane from the beef back ribs.
- In a small bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and blend well.
- Rub the dry ingredients evenly to coat the ribs.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour - even longer for more flavor.
- Preheat oven to 450°
- Place trivet inside the inner liner of the Instant Pot.
- Place the rib rack inside the pot, curving the ribs to make them fit.
- Pour the apple cider vinegar into the middle of the pot.
- Close the lid and the vent, cook on MANUAL for 25 minutes.
- Allow pot to perform a NATURAL RELEASE for 15 minutes.
- Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lay the ribs onto the foil.
- Baste with the desired amount of BBQ sauce and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes (depending on the desired amount of crispiness).
Notes
After feedback, the option for reducing the vinegar flavor by subbing water for part of the apple cider vinegar has been added to the ingredient list.
A natural release is very important when pressure cooking meats. If your ribs are more thick than usual, please are an additional 3-5 minutes pressure cooking time.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1 gramsAmount Per Serving: Unsaturated Fat: 0g
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Dana is an experienced recipe creator who crafts easy and delicious recipes for all levels of home cooks.
Her recipes range from classic comfort foods to healthy and nutritious meals, and she is always on the lookout for new and exciting ways to bring flavor and variety to the table.
mike mckenna says
Third time using this recipe. I really enjoy the flavor! I throw them on the bbq with some sauce for a little char instead of the oven. Always turn out amazing! Thanks for the recipe. I like the sound of beer with the acv, will try it tonight.
Beth says
Hi,
I was wondering if riblets could be used instead of beef short ribs? If so, is there any difference in cooking time? The riblets are half the cost so I am wondering what the difference is.
Dana says
Hi Beth,
I haven't personally cooked riblets this way but the time should remain the same.
Eileen says
OMG! These came out SO good! ? I’ll definitely make them again.
Cindi says
These were great! I didn’t have any apple cider vinegar so I used beer (3/4) with vegetable broth (1/4). Excellent.
Karen says
Delicious and very easy! I used bone broth instead of Apple cider vinegar.
It’s a keeper!
Shena Baez says
I have made this a few times and they are perfect EVERY time!
Kevin V says
Fixed this tonight with Beef Finger Ribs from HEB. It was delicious and so tender.!
Stephanie Sikma says
Made this for dinnner and it was really, really delicious.
Paul says
Hey this was easy, I too used beef broth, I used Baby Ray BBQ sauce. These were so good and easy, will do again!
Jay says
Might I recommend using apple whiskey or just apple juice replacing cider vinegar
CC says
I made beef ribs following your recipe (changed up some of the seasonings and used 1/4 cup ACV and 3/4 cup water. Let me just say, “OMG!!” These are so good; extra tender; and too easy to make. Thank you!
Susan says
The cooking time was way too long in my instant pot. The ribs basically lifted out of the meat and a large amount of the meat slipped into the cooking fluid and was no longer anything that resembled ribs. It basically became barbecue flavoured soup with a lot of vinegar in it ???
Dana says
Susan,
The goal for this recipe is to have the ribs tender enough to fall off the bone. However, it is important to keep them out of the liquid. In Step 6 of the recipe card, the directions are to place the trivet into the inner liner before placing the ribs into the pressure cooker. The trivet keeps the ribs out of the liquid and must be used. If you do not have a trivet, balled-up aluminum foil added to the liner works great. I am curious if this step was skipped and is why the meat slipped off the bones and into the liquid.
Also, if I understand your comment correctly, the BBQ was added to the ribs before they were pressure cooked. BBQ is not basted onto the ribs until after they are pressure cooked and baked in the oven (Step 12).
Regarding cooking time, I do not know how thick the ribs were that you pressure cooked but I can say that 25 minutes pressure cooking time is pretty lean compared to other recipes out there including the official recipes website as an example.
I sincerely hope that this information is helpful.
Tonya B Felder says
I made these ribs tonight but I used beef broth instead of vinegar and water. They turned out juicy and perfect. Thanks for sharing
Marg says
This is my go to recipe for beef ribs. Just as good as the restaurants and cheaper! My family loves it and it's so easy.
I used beef short ribs one time and the meat was not tender since they are thicker. I know now to buy the other kind which can be found at Costco. Great to see the other options if out of ACV. Thanks for sharing!
Jared says
substituting vinegar with a packet of Lipton Beefy Onion soup mix and 1.5 cups of water is magic..
It’s amazing.
I prefer not to use a dry rub to retain the juices from the ribs to freeze for other recipes.
Instead, sprinkle a little dry rub on the ribs with the BBQ sauce on the last step and you get the rub flavor.