Sous Vide St. Louis Ribs Recipe

One of my favorite summer foods are ribs. I like them smoked, boiled, grilled, and just about any other way you can cook them. I've found that preparing sous vide ribs lets you tenderize them while still keeping them medium rare and is a really unique way to do them. I've cooked them a few different ways and these sous vide St. Louis ribs were one of my favorites.

I ordered some St. Louis ribs from D'Artagnan, which were some of the meatiest ribs I've ever had. I seasoned the ribs with salt and pepper as well as some ground cumin and dried lemon peel. I then cooked the ribs sous vide for around 12 hours.

One of the things that I feel sous vide can take away from traditional grilling and BBQ is that great grilled flavor. Even though you still grill items done sous vide they are only on the grill for a few minutes. To get around this I quickly chilled the sous vide St. Louis ribs in a ½ ice - ½ water bath and refrigerated them.

Then when I grilled them later I could keep them on the grill for a much longer time without cooking the middle any more. I sacrificed a little bit of the "perfect" medium rare near the outside but they developed a great crust and the majority of the meat was still perfectly cooked. Since they were already cooked I removed the ribs from the grill when the middle started to approach 125°F (51.5°C) so it wouldn't cook any more but would still be nice and hot to eat.

While I was grilling the sous vide St. Louis ribs I basted them with Dinosaur BBQ sauce to get that sweet and sticky coating as well as the extra flavor from the sauce caramelizing.

I served the ribs with some grilled asparagus but the sous vide St. Louis ribs were definitely the centerpiece of the meal.