If you’re on a bit of a health kick this year, you might be wondering how you can continue eating all your favorite foods without damaging your body. Most people think that eating delicious and healthy food is impossible. But that’s not true. You just have to get good at cooking. 

This ten-minute BBQ tempeh recipe is a case in point. It mimics the experience of BBQ ribs, but without all the fat and sugar that makes it so unhealthy. And the best bit: it still tastes pretty good. 

For those of you who don’t know, tempeh is a type of unrefined tofu. It’s not as squidgy as the original, and it offers a heck of a lot more flavor. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll want more of it. 

You shouldn’t go into this recipe believing that you’re going to get something that feels exactly like pork ^[1] ribs. That’s just not possible with a product made of beans. Instead, see it as a new kind of dish. If you don’t like it, you can always go back to meat in the future. 

So how do you make it?

Ingredients

• 8 oz. pressed tempeh
• 1 cup BBQ sauce

Making The Sauce

Making the sauce is easy if you buy store-bought. 

You can, however, make your own version without all the usual added sugar. 

Just blend the following ingredients in your food processor: 

• 2 tsp coconut aminos
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 10 pitted dates
• ½ cup tomato paste
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar

That’s it. If you want to make a more umami sauce ^[2], you can add MSG instead of salt – or use miso paste instead. 

Making The Tempeh Ribs

Making the tempeh ribs is incredibly simple. 

First, take a non-stick tray or, if you need to, line it with greaseproof paper. 

Next, cut the block of tempeh into fingers, about half a centimeter wide, so that they look a bit like fish fingers. 

Carefully baste the tempeh in the BBQ sauce until you cover all sides of it. Place the tempeh on the baking dish and drizzle any remaining sauce over it. 

Then place it in the oven for 20 minutes at 420 F.

Once the tempeh cooks, it will come out crispy and golden. If you want a slightly more charred flavor, just increase the cooking time slightly. Do be warned, though, that tempeh can dry out. 

You can serve your BBQ tempeh with all the usual accouterments you’d have with ribs. Add it to fries, coleslaw, and corn on the cob. 

The best thing about this recipe is that you never feel like you’re missing out. The BBQ experience is similar to meat. And it’s a great stop-gap method if you’re craving something umami, but want to cut down on your unhealthy food consumption. 

Making your own sauce is often vastly healthier ^[3] than getting it from the store premade. And it tastes better too. You get a thicker, fresher, and richer experience.

So give it a try. It’s amazing!

We love ribs, but getting out the smoker and smoking them takes a lot of time – time we don’t have these days! But we love the flavor of smoked foods. Although this is not a replacement for real smoked ribs, they do have that delicious smoky flavor and are a lot easier to make.

Here’s How to Do it:

Start by soaking the wood chips. Put about 2 cups of chips made for smoking into a large bowl of water. Allow them to soak for about 6 hours or overnight.

Mix the dry rub ingredients and liberally cover the ribs with it. Leave it in the refrigerator, uncovered, over night.

These ribs take 3 to 4 hours to cook, so plan accordingly.

Place the wet wood chips in an aluminum dish in the bottom of a roasting pan that has a rack. Preheat the oven to 450° – Place the pan with the wood into the oven.

When the oven is hot and the wood is giving off some steam, place the ribs on the rack

and cover the whole pan tightly.

Reduce the oven to 275° and cook until the meat comes off easily with a fork – anywhere from 2 to 4 hours . Also check the wood from time to time. If it is to dry, add water. If it’s starting to burn, add water and more wet wood.

When the meat is tender, uncover and

spread barbecue sauce on both side.

Turn the heat back up to 450° and bake until the sauce is starting to caramelize – about 30 minutes.

Serve them hot and delicious with Miz Helen’s Garden Veggie Cornbread Casserole ^[7]!

© Copyright 2020 The Lazy Gastronome

Here are some things that are perfect to use for this recipe!

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We put garlic in everything. The more garlicky the better! My grandfather used to poke 20 or 30 wholes in a pork roast and push a whole clove of garlic in there! Then he roast it for hours until the whole house was permeated with the smell of roasting garlic. By the time you ate, you were hungry!

Here is a smaller, simpler version of grandpa’s roast.

Here’s How You do It:

Rub both sides of the pork with the salt, pepper and herbs. Lay it in a terracotta roasting dish.

Next, place the garlic cloves on top (and if you like it really garlicky, add more!), then,

Cover with the bacon.

Place in a 350° oven and roast for about 20 minutes. Give it a turn.

Roast another 20 to 30 minutes, until the meat is browned and fork tender.

Remove from the heat and let rest for about 5 minutes. Top with the bacon and garlic from the bottom of the pan

and slice. Goes great with Garlicky Stuffed Mushrooms ^[12]!

© Copyright 2019 The Lazy Gastronome

Here are some things that are perfect to use for this recipe!

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My husband and I discovered some amazing spiced rum. We were apprehensive because most spiced rums taste like chemicals to us. This one…this one tasted like cherries!! It is my new favorite cooking alcohol. It is delicious to soak berries, adding just some whipped cream on top. It’s fabulous in coke – cherry coke!

And it makes for an amazing, sticky sweet barbecue sauce!

Here’s How to Do it:

First, put the thawed cherries, cherry juice and the cherry jam into a sauce pan and heat on low.

Puree the remaining ingredients in a blender, except the rum. Stir into the cherries and continue to cook on medium-low until the sauce begins to thicken.

Add 1/2 the rum and simmer another 10 to 15 minutes. (I used this time to sip a little too – calms the cook).

Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining rum. The sugars from the alcohol will caramelize on the meat and the alcohol will cook out, leaving a sticky sweet sauce on your ribs or chicken.

Store the barbecue sauce airtight in the refrigerator for one to two weeks, unless you use it all up in a few days, like we did!

To use, slather the sauce on ribs or chicken and grill until the meat is cooked and the sauce is crisp and gooey with little burnt spots.

© Copyright 2019 The Lazy Gastronome

Let me tell you, this sauce was so good on these ribs we didn’t even have any leftovers! They were consumed with gusto! It worked out deliciously on chicken too!

Here are some things that are perfect to use for this recipe!

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I love ribs. I keep hearing ads on TV that say – “Carolina Ribs” or “St. Louis Style Ribs” – but what does that mean? How are they different? Well, I decided to do a little research, play with the basics and give some a try. Here’s what I came up with.

Kansas City barbecue is known for its sauce! Thick, rich, tomato based with lots of molasses. The ribs are dry rubbed, smoked and succulent. Not quite fall off the bone, but tender and juicy. Which ribs to use? Either back or spare work great with this style.

St. Louis style is similar to Kansas City, except the sauce is a little thinner – a little heavier on the vinegar and not quite so sweet. The dry rubbed ribs are slowly cooked over a low heat, smokey grill and mopped often to caramelize the sauce onto the juicy, fall off the bone meat. Most often spare ribs are used for this delicious dish.

Memphis Ribs are dry rubbed with a simple mixture, then grilled to perfection. They won’t fall of the bone, they’ll just melt in your mouth once you’ve taken a bite. The sauce is a mustard based sauce with a bit more of a kick than some of the other sauces. Most often these are made with back ribs.

And then there is the Carolina rib. I think this is my favorite. No rub, just some salt and pepper and a low, slow cooking over hickory smoke. This is a fall off the bone rib. The sauce is a spicy, vinegar based sauce that is mopped on at the very end of the cooking. The ribs used are usually spare ribs.

And now the ribs. What’s the difference between spare and back you ask? Flavor wise, not much. But where they come from is what makes the difference. Obviously the back ribs come from the back of the rib cage. These are usually less meaty and more tender. The spare rib comes from the belly side of the ribs. They are meatier, but less tender than the back. Either one makes for a great meal if they are cooked low and slow.

And so here they are. My versions of the three styles!

What you need:

Carolina Style 

• 1 slab of back ribs
• ¾ cup red wine vinegar
• 3 Tablespoons hot sauce (like Tapatio)
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• ¼ cup water
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper

Memphis Style 

• 1 slab back ribs

   Rub 

• 1 teaspoon of each: Sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder, brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon dry mustard
• ½ teaspoon pure maple syrup

      Mustard Sauce

• ½ cup prepared barbecue sauce
• 3 Tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon each: garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika
• ¼ cup cold water
• 1 Tablespoon dry mustard

Kansas City Style

• 1 Slab of spare ribs

     Rub

• 1 teaspoon each: Salt, black pepper, chili powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 Tablespoons smoked paprika
• 1 Tablespoon brown sugar

     Sauce

• ¾ bottle barbecue sauce with molasses base
• 2 Tablespoon molasses

How to Do it:

Mix up the ingredients for the rubs. Rub the ribs down on both sides and refrigerate overnight. If you’re doing the Carolina, just rub them down with some sea salt and pepper. A little more salt on the fatty area. Start soaking the wood chips for the smoker.

Fire up the smoker. Smoke the slabs for 3 hours (Kansas City and Carolina need about 4 hours). Mix up the sauce while they are slowly turning into tender deliciousness.

Move the slabs to the grill set on Medium-high. Mop them with sauce (except for the Kansas City – serve the sauce on the side for these beauties). Cook about 15 to 20 minutes on each side, mopping often with the sauce.

Remove from the grill and let them cool a bit. Cut them apart and serve them with sauce on the side and lots of wet napkins.

© Copyright 2018 The Lazy Gastronome

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