How To Make Smoked Party Ribs Recipe

The football season is heating up, so it’s time to start dusting off those party recipes when people are coming over for the game. Today we’re making smoked party ribs for 60 people, and I’m giving you my recipe for the rib rub and the barbecue sauce so you can make these delicious ribs yourself and impress your friends and family.

We’re on location cooking for a group of people over at Precision Garage Door of Indianapolis. These guys came through for us when our garage door broke, and it’s time to say thanks with 180 party ribs for when the crew gets finished with work for the day.

You might be asking, “What in the world are smoked party ribs?”

It’s a method of cooking baby back or spare ribs where you cut each rib into individual single bone servings instead of cooking the entire rack whole. We’ll talk about why I love cooking baby back ribs this way as we go, so let’s get the Outlaw fired up and show you how we do it.

How to make smoked party ribs

Step 1: Cut the ribs apart.

We’re using Pork Loin Back Ribs today, and we picked up 3 packs at Costco. One of the things I love about these is that the membrane has already been pulled off for us, so it’s straight to cutting without having to wrestle the membrane off the back of the ribs for 15 racks.

I’m cutting these into single bone ribs, and a good boning knife would be perfect for this. Just aim your knife in the middle between the bones and that’s all there is to it. 

Step 2: Season thoroughly with your favorite BBQ dry rub.

To season the party style ribs, we laid out some wide aluminum foil on the counter and put our Hot & Sweet Barbecue Rub in a shaker bottle with the yellow sized lid. If you don’t have one of these, they’re really great for larger cooks where you’re seasoning lots of meat.  

The goal is to season each rib on all 4 sides, and if you’re using a sugary rub, go heavy. If it’s a salt forward BBQ seasoning, plan on going with a light even coat.

Step 3: Put the party ribs on the smoker.

We’re cooking on the Outlaw Renegade Trailer built by Jay Craig and his team up in Mentone, Indiana, just over an hour north of where we’re located in Indy. This is a 30×60 inch cooking surface, and we’re going to use the whole thing.

I like to put the ribs on the grate sitting on their side, since I plan on flipping them once during the cook. This way I won’t end up with meat side down and a bunch of smiley face rib bones looking at me during the second half of the cook.

We’re running the pit between 275 and 300 degrees today, and this is how we’re going to leave the ribs for 45 minutes.

We are putting 4 Thermoworks meat probes into the ribs so we can track how the grill is running for the first few hours of the cook. If we see any row getting more heat, we can rotate the rows when it comes time to flip the individual ribs over.

Step 4: Flip the ribs over.

After just short of an hour, here’s what our smoked party ribs were looking like. The hardest part of this cook is turning each individual bone over on a grill grate that’s 30 inches deep with thick rubber gloves on your hands. The Outlaw is hotter than I’m willing to work bare handed, so it’s necessary awkwardness I suppose. Once all of the individual ribs were flipped over, we set a 50 minute timer and went inside to make our favorite BBQ sauce.

Step 5: Glaze and wrap up the party ribs.

After a cook time of about an hour and 45 minutes, it was time to get the smoked party ribs into foil trays. We found that a griddle spatula was exactly the tool we needed, and made quick work of 15 full racks of baby back ribs.

For each pan of smoked party ribs, we’re going to add 4 things. First is butter. We’re running Kerrygold butter, and each foil pan is getting about a stick and a half in tablespoon pats.

Second is two handfulls of brown sugar. There’s no measuring here, just fill your mitten with brown sugar and scatter it all over the top.

Third, we’re adding some honey, and I would estimate that we’re using about a half cup. We’re not measuring, so more or less is completely up to you.

Lastly, we’re putting three ladles of our homemade barbecue sauce in each foil pan. Once it’s all in there, put on some gloves and it’s time to get messy and turn it all over to incorporate everything.

You’ll notice that the brown sugar dissolves almost instantly with the other ingredients, and once all of the ribs have a good coating, it’s time to cover each pan with aluminum foil and put them back on the pit.

Step 6: Set the glaze and serve.

You could let these ribs rest in a dry cooler for a few hours, you could brush them with the sauce and glaze in the foil pan, put them back on the grill for 15 minutes to set the BBQ sauce, and they’ll look incredible. If you’re like me though, and you have 50 people standing around waiting on ribs, you just take them inside and hand them a pair of tongs and a plate.

If you haven’t tried party ribs, what makes them special for me is that each side of every rib is getting a full coat of BBQ seasoning and BBQ sauce, which you don’t get by cooking them as a whole rack. If you haven’t tried these yet, pick a football game or an upcoming company pitch in and show your ribs what a party looks like. Incredibly easy to grab and go, which will make it a huge hit for your next game day eats.