Thick, tangy, slightly sweet & so finger-lickin’ good 

SERVES: 4 – 6
PREP TIME: 15 mins
COOKING TIME: 2 – 3 hrs slow cooking
DIFFICULTY: easy
IDEAL FOR: crowd-pleaser, family meal, snack, barbecue
BUDGET: £

What is it?

Carolina-style barbecue rib is all about the sauce.

It’s a vinegar and mustard-based sauce.

So you get a great combo of sweet and tangy flavours perfect for grilled or smoked pork (or chicken).

In the mid and southwest, their sauces are ketchup and molasses-based.

Southern-style barbecue

‘Barbecue’ is derived from Spanish ‘barbacoa’ and means “to preserve (meat) by drying or slowly roasting”.

Americans love a good pit barbecue (basically cooking meat outside).

And they are pros at it.

They’ve been doing it since colonial times with it first mentioned in 1672.

It’s usually a slow cook method to develop smoky flavours in the meat and then often smothered with some amazing sauce.

Southern-style barbecue is very much a part of the South’s cultural identity.

4 styles of Southern barbecue

There are four main styles...

Carolina and Memphis – which use pork and are the oldest styles.

And Kansas City and Texas – which use beef (as well as pork), and evolved from the original ‘Deep South’ barbecue.

Carolina styles

Carolina barbecue is pork, served pulled, shredded, or chopped, but sometimes sliced.

It may also be rubbed with a spice mixture before smoking and basted with a mustard and vinegar liquid during smoking.

But within the State of Carolina, they then have their own variations on the method of barbecue and the sauce.

Here’s a quick-fire look at the regional differences.

First up, the regions of Carolina…

South Carolina sauce

• Also known as “Carolina Gold”
• Made up of yellow mustard, vinegar, brown sugar and other spices.
• Pulled pork and ribs

Eastern North Carolina

• Barbecue the “whole hog”.
• Use a thin sauce made of vinegar and spices (often simply cayenne pepper).

Western North Carolina

• Only use the pork shoulder, which is mainly dark meat.
• Use a vinegar-based sauce that includes the addition of varying amounts of tomato.

Other barbecue styles

Kansas City

• Kansas City-style barbecue uses beef, pork, and lamb
• Smoked with a dry rub, slow-cooked and a thick tomato-based barbecue sauce is served as a table sauce.

Memphis

• Primarily they do ribs (“wet” and “dry“) and the barbecue sandwich (i.e. pulled pork).
• Wet ribs are brushed with sauce before and after cooking.
• Dry ribs are seasoned with a dry rub.

Texas

There are four generally recognized regional styles of barbecue in Texas:

• East Texas style, which is essentially Southern barbecue and is also found in many urban areas
• Central Texas “meat market style”, which originated in the butcher shops of German and Czech immigrants to the region;
• West Texas “cowboy style”, which involves direct cooking over mesquite and uses goat and mutton as well as beef; and
• South Texas barbacoa, in which the head of a cow is cooked (originally underground)

Don’t worry, I’ll be posting more recipes for these other styles.

Because you can never get enough of sticky ribs!

If you have a favourite recipe for ribs, leave a comment, below…