One of my favorite cuisines is Chinese food! Asian in general, really! And my all-time favorite American-Asian-fusion take-out dish is General Tso’s Chicken! So I took my own homemade recipe and adjusted and accommodated it to go well with baby back ribs, (I mean, why not right?), and they were fantastic! Wow!  So today I give you some pretty spectacular ribs, General Tso’s Boneless Baby Back Ribs! How does that sound? Pretty good, right?

Now, you can certainly leave the bones in, but my hubby, though I love that man more than life itself, has some funny quirks. (Don’t we all!!!) And this one drives me nuts. It’s not easy to time out whole meals to make sure that everything gets done at the same time and serve the whole plate hot. And the first thing he does to his ribs is dissect them.

Each. And every….single…bone…truly painful to watch.

Because, by the time this tedious and annoying “chore” is finally done, and his “bone bowl” next to his plate is piled high with rib bones…..his once juicy and tender meat is pretty much cold. Along with any side dish that I’ve prepared and painstakingly timed out to be done at precisely the same time. Arrrggg. Not always easy!!

So. I figured out an easy way to just remove all the bones, quickly and easily, before the sauce and final baking (5 minutes) ever even happens!

This way, he’s happy, I’m happy, his food is still hot and not making me crazy, and all of the bones and mess are already taken care of!

WAH. LAH. DONE. 😉

(*If you need to see how this is done, you can take a quick peek {here!}. )

These are “indoor” ribs, though you could certainly do them in your crock pot if you like to wait that long! But It’s torture enough smelling them slow-bake in the oven for 2 1/2 hours as it is! I don’t know how good these would do on the grill due to the dark brown sugar, but if you’re an expert rib griller, and think they’d do alright, then by all means! Throw them on the grill!

After I remove the bones, they get dowsed with the incredibly crazy good sauce, and take just 5 last minutes in the oven! *This part, though, I’d highly suggest that you do in the oven.* A crock pot wouldn’t give the sauce a proper setting, and I think that these would absolutely annihilate a grill and turn into a disastrous mess. There would probably be more sauce stuck on the grates than on the meat! (I’d rather have the sauce on the ribs, wouldn’t you?) So just do the last part in the oven. Trust me on this.

So if the weather isn’t cooperating for your cookout, and you’re liking the sound of my sweet ‘n spicy, tender and juicy, fall-off-the-bone, melt-in-your-mouth, EASY to make ribs recipe…(whew!)…then you just landed in the right spot for some killer good indoor barbecue with a bit of an Asian flair!

Serve these gorgeous, boneless slabs of baby back rib meat over some buttered rice, some steamed fresh broccoli, or maybe sugar snap peas, and you’ve got yourself one heck of an incredible dinner! Hope you enjoy these General Tso’s Boneless Baby Back Ribs as much as we did!! And have a most wonderful dinner!

*These ribs also go really well with my homemade fried rice and egg rolls!

Yield: 2 - 4 servings

General Tso's Boneless Baby Back Ribs

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Ingredients

• 1 rack pork baby back ribs (3 - 3 1/2 lbs.), sinew from back removed

For Dry Rub:

• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 Tbl. paprika
• 1/2 Tb. regular table salt
• 2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/16 tsp. onion powder

For General Tso Sauce:

• Saute:
• 2 Tbl. canola oil
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• 1/2 Tbl. finely minced or grated fresh ginger
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 5 - 8 small dried red chilli peppers, broken up into very small pieces/medium crushed (I prefer it fairly hot so I add 8)
• 3 - 4 green onions, snipped into 1/4" slices
• Stir into small bowl:
• 3 Tbl. soy sauce
• 2 1/2 Tbl. rice vinegar
• 1 Tbl. hoisin sauce, or to taste
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 Tbl. + 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1 Tbl. dark brown sugar
• 1/2 Tbl. fresh-squeezed orange juice
• 1/2 tsp. very finely grated orange zest
• 1 tsp. ground fresh chili paste sauce ( I used Sambal Oelek)
• 1/2 tsp. hickory liquid smoke (I used Stubb's)
• 1 Tbl. cornstarch

Garnish:

• 1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
• 1 Tbl. snipped green onion

Instructions

For Ribs:

Rinse ribs with cold water, pat dry with paper towels, and remove sinew from back.

In medium-small bowl, mix together well the Dry Rub ingredients. Place a large sheet of foil, several inches longer than the ribs at each end, onto working surface dull side-up. Spray center with non stick spray. Place ribs, meat side-up, onto foil. Coat, pressing on, a little over half of the dry rub coating well. Turn ribs over, making sure they are in the center, and coat bone side with rest of rub. Bring long-edged sides of foil up to meet and carefully roll down to meet the top of the ribs. Fold ends of foil inward like an envelope and roll up. It should be a nice closed package touching the meat. Just be careful not to tear the foil. You want it sealed closed.

Place rib package onto foil-lined baking sheet folded side-up (meat side-down). Let rest and preheat oven, or place into fridge to marinate up to two days.

For Sauce:

Heat 2 -3 Tbl. oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, and add the ginger, garlic, dried red chillies and green onions. Fry until fragrant. (30 seconds to one minute. Don't over-brown or burn garlic and ginger.)

Pour in the sauce mixture and stir to mix. Stir and cook until the sauce comes to a boil and thickens. Remove from heat and set aside.

To Cook Ribs:

Pop into preheated 300º F oven for 2½ hours. (If cooking after chilling, let sit out at least 30 minutes before baking).

When ribs are done, remove from oven, and turn oven up to 350º F. Carefully open foil package, and transfer ribs to clean, foil-lined backing sheet bone side-up. Run a sharp paring knife right over each bone and lift bones right out with tongs.

Coat well with almost half of the sauce. Turn over and coat top with rest of sauce.

When oven has reached new temp, pop into oven and bake for 5 minutes.

Slice into serving-sized pieces and serve hot garnished with toasted sesame seeds and fresh snipped green onions.