Soy-braised pork ribs

“Braising is the balm for the burnt-out cook.”

I saw these words at the beginning of a beautiful article about the allure of braising, and it made complete sense to me.

With braising, you put in a small amount of effort (less than 10 minutes here), and an hour or two later, you end up with a dish full of flavor, where the oven has done all the work for you. I can’t think of anything better than that for the tired home cook.

This is my plug-and-play soy braising recipe. I use this recipe with bone-in chicken thighs and beef short ribs. I don’t know why it took me so long to braise pork ribs, but here we are.

*See the note below for soy-free

Soy-braised pork ribs

Ingredients:

1/2 cup tamari (for wheat-free) or soy sauce
1/2 cup water
6-8 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled (no need to chop)
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 TBS brown sugar
2 lbs. pork ribs, separated

Dutch oven directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F with wire rack in center of the oven.

2. With your Dutch oven on the stovetop, turn the heat to medium. Add soy sauce, water, smashed garlic, onion and brown sugar. Stir to combine.

3. Add pork ribs, arranging them so that they all make contact with your liquid.

4. After the liquid comes to a steady boil, cover with tight-fitting, oven-safe lid. Place into oven and braise for 2 hours.

5. Carefully remove from oven. Serve with short- or medium-grain rice, kimchi, or other sides.

Slow cooker directions:

1. In slow cooker, combine soy sauce, water, smashed garlic, onion and brown sugar. Stir to combine.

2. Add pork ribs, arranging them so that they all make contact with your liquid.

3. Cover and set temperature to HIGH (this should be around 300 deg. F). Braise for 2 hours.

4. Serve with short- or medium-grain rice, kimchi, or other sides.

Contains: soy

For my soy-free folks…

Disclaimer: I have not cooked this dish soy-free, but these modifications are based on a taste-test of Big Tree Farms Coconut Aminos.

• Substitute soy-sauce for Big Tree Farms Coconut Aminos.

• Omit sugar.

• Add 1 tsp of something salty. My preference would be to add Red Boat Fish Sauce. Table salt will also do (for kosher salt with bigger granules, 1.25 tsp)

• Optional: To level up the umami, I would also add a 4”x5” (-ish) piece of kombu (dried seaweed; top 9 free) when adding coco aminos, water and garlic to the pot. I would heat it up slowly so that the kombu has time to steep (about 10 minutes before it boils). Then, remove kombu before adding pork ribs. See my Instagram post about kombu here.

• Optional: To add even more umami flavor (which coco aminos really lack), I would also add 1 TBS of Shio Koji (fermented rice sauce; top 9 free). See my Instagram post about Shio Koji here.

I made the kombu and Shio Koji steps optional because I know not everyone has these items in their pantry (though they should!).

But I would absolutely use them because 1) it’s effortless and 2) you really want to add that umami that coconut aminos lack.