The other day my wife came back from the store with a package of "rib tips" from the store. I had never seen these before, and was intrigued on what recipe we were going to make them with.
We originally planned on having them in a stir fry. After cutting into the first piece of meat, there were so many bones on it that I really couldn't get enough chunks of meat off them for a decent stir fry. As I was getting ready to put them back in the fridge and get some chicken for stir fry the thought occurred to me... let's try these on the grill. So I pulled out my homemade rub, coated up the tips, and stuck them in the fridge over night. The next day I tossed them on the grill, slathered them with my BBQ sauce, and in about 20 minutes they were fully cooked. They tasted AMAZING. I was genuinely surprised. The rub and the sauce gave it the flavor of slow cooked ribs, and we were easily able to suck all the meat off them and leave the small bone pieces aside. If you're looking for the actual recipe, my wife has blogged about that here.
You still may be wondering what cut of meat this is. When you typically buy ribs from the grocery store, you get the "unbutchered" rack, which looks like this (minus the rub):
Once you're done properly preparing the rack, it looks like this:
Notice the nice clean rectangular shape? The back also has a "skin" removed from the back of it as well. Where did the rest of the meat go? It's definitely edible, and THAT is where the rib tips come from. We're not wasting any meat, and we're getting some good food out of it as well!
Give rib tips a try sometime. It's worth noting that the tips are a lot cheaper than your typical ribs. Which makes them great when you're in a bit of a budget crunch. I'll admit that I'm still partial to my 2 to 3 hour slow grill full rack of ribs. However, with the rib tips, you get the flavor of the ribs in a fraction of the cook time. This makes it great for a quick weekday dinner.
Grab the recipe for this on my wife's blog!
Enjoy!