These salt and pepper ribs are fall-apart-tender with a light, crispy coating. Topped with a mouth-tingling salt and pepper coating with chiles and spring onions, they’re totally more!
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These ribs go through a two-step cooking process. First they are slowly cooked in stock with some aromatics – this is to make the meat soft, almost to the point of falling apart.
We then coat the ribs and fry them in a crispy coating with Chinese five spices (the essential ingredient in any Chinese style salt and pepper recipe).
This results in crispy yet melt-in-the-mouth ribs that make for an impressive dinner.
📋 Ingredients?
👩🍳Professional tip I like to slow cook these ribs on the stove because it’s faster, but you can do the first part of the recipe in a slow cooker. See the notes sections on the recipe card for information.
This is how they look right after frying – a lovely crispy and delicious coating, which only gets better when you add the toppings too!
🍽️ with what to serve
Serve as a main dish with rice, or as part of a Chinese dinner. What do you think about:
So delicate and delicious – I love the vibrant color of the chilli and spring onions (scallions) on top.
🍲 More fantastic recipes with pork
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Salt and pepper ribs
These salt and pepper ribs are fall-apart-tender with a light, crispy coating. Topped with a mouth-tingling salt and pepper coating with chiles and spring onions, they’re totally more!
Instructions
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Add all slow cooker ribs ingredients to a large, heavy-based skillet. Bring to a boil, place a lid and cook on low heat for hours. Check several times during the last hour of cooking, and add a little more water if necessary.
8 meaty pork ribs, 1 liter (4 cups) hot chicken stock, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 3 garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon of rice wine, 1 tablespoon of sugar or granulated sugar
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Turn off the heat and drain the pork. The cooking liquor is no longer needed, and can be thrown away (or used as a great stock for soup).
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Leave the ribs to cool for a few minutes, so they are cool enough to handle.
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Make the rub by mixing the salt, pepper, cornflour and Chinese five spice together in a large bowl. Add in the ribs and dust them with the rub.
1 ½ teaspoons of salt, 1 ½ teaspoons of ground black pepper, 3 tablespoons cornflour (corn starch in the US), 2 Chinese teaspoons five spices
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Remove the ribs from the bowl and place on a tray or board.
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There should still be some powder left at the bottom of the bowl. To this add the cold water and mix together to form a liquid.
2 tablespoons of cold water
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Brush this liquid on the ribs (this will give a lighter crispy coating to the ribs).
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Heat the oil in a large pan and add the ribs. Cook on medium-high for 8-10 minutes, turning carefully every 2-3 minutes until the ribs are golden brown and crispy.
240 ml (1 cup) oil
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Remove the ribs from the pan and place on a large serving plate.
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Add 1 tablespoon of the oil from the ribs to a small pan and heat over medium heat.
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Add the onions, chili, salt and garlic to the hot pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring often, until fragrant, then sprinkle over the ribs and serve.
A bunch of small spring onions spread on the diagonal, 1 green chili, 1 red chili, ½ teaspoon of salt, 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
✎ Notes
Add all the slow cooker ribs ingredients to the slow cooker/pot and cook for 4-5 hours on medium or 6-7 hours on low. Then filter the ribs and continue with the recipe.
The front:
You can make this recipe in advance until the end of step 2 (where the pork chops are slowly cooked and then drained). Then cool quickly, cover and refrigerate (up to two days) or freeze.
Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before continuing with the frying step of the recipe.
The ribs:
Look for meaty pork chops. Ideally you want them to be sliced ready, so they fit nicely into the mold.
You can usually buy ready-cut ribs, or ask your butcher to do it for you.
The nutritional information is approximate, per rib, assuming each rib absorbs a teaspoon of oil during the frying process.
diet
Calories: 288KKLCarbohydrates: 5Gprotein: 13GFat: 24GSaturated fat: 6GPolyunsaturated fat: 5GUnsaturated fat: 10Gtrans fat: 0.2GCholesterol: 63mgsodium: 906mgpotassium: 265mgfiber: 1GSugar: 2Gvitamin: 149IUVitamin C: 11mgcalcium: 33mgiron: 1mg
This recipe was first published in September 2015. Updated in July 2023 with new photos, some recipe changes and some housekeeping.
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