Slow Cooker Paleo Barbecue Ribs

I love me some good tender ribs but they can be messy and annoying to make — behold these slow cooker ribs with paleo barbecue sauce! They are too good and perfectly paired with a yummy crunchy kale salad!

If you have a smoker by all means, be my guest, but one, I don’t, and two, this method is just easier and requires a lot less clean up!

For this particular recipe I used pork ribs from ButcherBox (click the link for a special monthly deal) but you can also make them with beef ribs as well!

Can You Meal Prep The Ribs?

It is not your typical meal prep but you can bet on it that I prepped these for the week!! I stored them in a rectangle container for up to a week and they stayed great. This recipe only makes 4 servings so you should go through them in no time!

Ingredients For The Slow Cooker Paleo Barbecue Ribs:

• ButcherBox Pork Ribs (St. Louis Style)
• Primal Kitchen Barbecue Sauce

For the rub:

• ½ tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp onion powder
• ¼ tsp cumin
• ½ tsp smoked paprika
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper

How To Make The Slow Cooker Paleo Barbecue Ribs

1. First and foremost you need to remove the membrane from the ribs. This is the thin layer on the backside of the ribs that looks like a white film. It is tough and will make for tough ribs if you leave it on! To remove it you can simply try and peel it off with her hands, or slide a knife under it and cut it off. You can also refer to this article here for more information.
2. Once this is done you can put together the spices for the rub.
3. Now, cut the ribs into 4 equal sections, and rub the rub all over both sides of each section.
4. Fill the crock pot with 1/2 cup of water, place the ribs in the slow cooker, and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours.
5. When the time is almost up on the slow cooker you can preheat the broiler.
6. When the ribs are done, take them out and place them on a baking sheet.
7. Brush them with the Primal Kitchen BBQ sauce, the amount is up to you, I used 54 grams of the sauce and added a bit more as I ate them.
8. Broil them for 3-4 minutes.
9. Store in a sealed container if you are making them for the week, or enjoy them with your family!
10. Makes 4 servings.

Perfect Pairings For The Paleo Barbecue Ribs

Whether you are having the ribs right after they are done cooking or preparing them for the week like I did, there are a few options when it comes to sides!

A few things that I had with by ribs were:

Crunchy Kale Salad: Costco has the best kale salad in my opinion, I used a Primal Plate dressing rather than the poppy seed dressing that was provided! It also comes with sunflower seeds and cranberries to top the salad with too, yum!

Corn on the cob: Well it is in season right !?! Good ol ‘corn and some ribs, or better yet cornbread.. I did not have corn bread but you can definitely make some to have on the side!

This is all I paired them with, what other ideas do you have? Comment below.

Can You Make These If You Are Following The Whole30 Diet?

The Paleo diet and the Whole30 diet essentially go hand in hand..the main difference is Whole30 is set to be only a short duration whereas paleo is more-so a lifestyle change.

But these ribs are again from ButcherBox, and the barbecue sauce I used is from Primal Kitchen, you can click here to order it online. I found mine at the grocery store, I believe Amazon also has it!

The ingredients in this Barbecue sauce are great and there are no added sugars and it is delicious!!

How Do You Fit The Ribs In The Slow Cooker?

If you read above, you need to cut the ribs into 4 equal sections! This will allow for an easy fit in the crock pot despite the size that you have! It will also make for the perfect serving sizes since this recipe makes 4 servings.

How Do You Track Ribs With The Bone In Them?

So this is a common question I get, what I did was weigh the ribs all together with the bone in. Once I ate them I went ahead and weighed the bone once more and subtracted that from the total weight — this gave me the weight I actually consumed!

So for example if the ribs weighed 400 grams with the bones, and then the bones weighed 300 grams without the meat on them I would track 100 grams!

To track this in My Fitness Pal Search: HNFit Slow Cooker Paleo Barbecue Ribs

Are Pork Ribs Keto?

It really depends on how you prepare them, but for the most part they are a higher fat meat. Additionally, meat typically does not have a high carb content regardless! This recipe is low in carbs, high in protein, and semi high in fat. This is a paleo recipe so the barbecue sauce used does not contain any sugar. If you did prepare ribs with a barbecue sauce that had a lot of sugar it would no longer be paleo, nor keto and it would likely have a higher carb count! I do not follow a keto or paleo diet, but this would be the perfect rib recipe for you if you were!

Full Slow Cooker Paleo Barbecue Rib recipe is below: