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Oct 29, 2023

BBQ ribs taste test: which supermarket's pork should get the chop?

While US-style ribs are slow-cooked in the barbecue, most British own brands

While US-style ribs are slow-cooked in the barbecue, most British own brands have to make do with oven cooking. Can any of these pre-prepared packs conjure up the sprit of a real American ’cue?

Britain has always enjoyed a barbecue, but the glowing embers of this love affair have recently been rekindled by the rise of "dude food". That is, our new Man v Food fondness for burgers, dogs and huge, US-style hunks of grilled meats. According to analysts Kantar Worldpanel, there were 115.3m British BBQs last year, up more than 8%, with burgers overtaking sausages as our favourite barbecue food.

In this smoky world, pork ribs are a strange proposition. Instead of grilling, they are – in a typical US cook-out – prepared slow ’n’ low in BBQ pits warmed by an indirect heat source. This explains why, while several supermarkets advise that their own-brand versions (normally pre-cooked for reheating) spend a brief spell on a BBQ to pick up some charcoal flavour, they are generally designed to be oven-cooked. In a country with such unreliable summers, this could be seen as a plus.

With a curt nod to authenticity, most supermarket ribs – larger spare ribs or racks of smaller loin/baby-back ribs – now come in a dry rub with a packet of glazing sauce to add later. If you are prepared to make your own marinades, however, Packington's raw, belly-cut ranch ribs (8/10, 400g, £5.19; Ocado) were, while not an own brand, the best ribs tested here. Thick with fat, which rendered away beautifully, they delivered an impressively tender and moist, porky mouthful. Did any of the pre-prepared own brands get close to that standard?

460g, £3.75

Suspicious that the glazes would be the weakest element in this test, I tasted (where possible) the rubbed meat and glazed ribs separately. Sauce-free, these moist baby-back ribs offered reasonable flavour. Someone has been busy with the garlic, ginger and hot paprika. The tomato-dominated sauce is too sweet, but it has a persuasive peppery edge. If "New York" means creating ribs reminiscent of a plate of Italian meatballs, Tesco fulfils its remit. 6/10

600g, £2.99

Oddly described as having been "marinated in a BBQ flavour glaze" (the ingredients are clearly those of a rub), but packaged with an additional sauce. Luckily, the end flavours are less confusing. Pre-sauce, the ribs give up the kind of cayenne, paprika and "smoke flavouring" taste you expect in an upmarket bag of crisps. While no classic, the sauce – its burnt-sugar sweetness offset by a palpable smokiness and peppery, clove-tinged heat – is mellow and reasonably balanced. 5.5/10

700g, £4

Can you taste that distinctive smoky, coffee note in the honey sauce? That's the "red eye" bit. Although, inauthentically, no caffeine is used (instead, that flavour appears to be created with malted barley and "smoke flavouring"). Before adding that sauce, a clanging, infantilising layer of sweetness, these chunky ribs were promising. The rub is fruity and punchy, the pork falls off the bone. Collectively, it is a winning combination of savoury flavours. That sauce, though? No. 6/10

625g, £6

First cooked sous-vide for several hours (the vac-packed, water-bath technique popularised by Heston Blumenthal), the fat-laced meat on this glossy, lubricious rack is notably moist and tender. This is decent pork (with no added water, unlike Asda's and Aldi's versions), whose applewood smoking and simple sugar, spice and smoked garlic rub has imparted good flavours. The sauce lends the pork a pleasant caramelised apple edge, but, gradually, the cayenne rather muffles all other flavours. 7.5/10

676g, £5

Sainsbury's makes a big play about how this rib rack is slow-cooked for more than two hours. But far from "simply falling off the bones", the dull, tasteless meat (the rub imparts mere hints of tomato and garlic) requires vigorous gnawing. Despite its gloopy, unappetising texture, the glazing sauce – sweet, tarry, smoky, with a precise heat redolent of not just chilli, but also ground black pepper – saves these mundane ribs. 5/10

600g, £3.50

Again the dense, not particularly fatty meat on this "slow-cooked" loin rack needs to be actively tugged off. Melting it ain't. The chipotle rub is unexciting, dominated as it is not by chipotle but the muffled scent of apparently dusty, tired paprika. Smoked paprika and tomato puree are, likewise, the big flavours in the sweet sauce, which, although chipotle chilli extract gives it a throat-tickling kick, lacks the depth and complexity you might reasonably expect. 5/10

535g, £5

Was something lost in translation mid-Atlantic? Like the Morrison's ribs, Waitrose's "red eye" version omits coffee but includes vodka and tomato paste, which is closer in spirit to the "red eye" drink popularised in Tom Cruise's Cocktail. Either way, these are so-so ribs. Beyond a cracked black and cayenne pepper buzz, the rub ("hickory smoked") has left little impression on the pleasantly gelatinous meat. The tomato, honey and molasses sauce is so sweet you cannot but worry about early-onset diabetes. 5/10

460g, £4

What would a US pitmaster make of these (frozen, microwaveable) ribs? There is hardly any meat above and below the skinny rack's bones and barely a centimetre of (broadly flavourless) pork between the ribs. Moreover, the ribs come pre-glazed in a sticky sauce that, while you can taste molasses and onion and, belatedly, some chilli, cayenne, tomato and smoke, is more of a low-level hum than a bold explosion of flavour. A meek mouthful. 3/10

500g, £4

Four huge Flintstone-style spare ribs … but size isn't everything. You have to tear the surprisingly tough meat off the bone and, despite it containing great, flabby bits of fat, there is little piggy flavour to this (added water) pork. The ribs sit in their juices as they cook, creating an unappealing wet edge on each, and the rub (erroneously described as a "glaze") is clunky: sweet and tomato-y, heavy on the smoked paprika with a pointed heat. 4/10

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