The Countertop Oven Class

Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

We believe you should be able to make barbecue wherever you live, whether you live on a big-skied prairie or in a tiny studio smack in the middle of a skyscraper. Not just when the weather permits or once you’ve amassed the funds to invest in a smoker: You should be able to create incredible barbecue, indoors, whenever you damn well please. And if you don’t want to wear pants while you do it, well, that’s okay, too.  
 
That’s why we’ve spent countless hours figuring out how to use other tools to get you the same results, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/oven-kansas-city-style-barbecue-ribs">even if all you’ve got is an oven</a>. But if you’ve got a sous vide setup, not only can you produce results on par with a smoker, you can also dial in the texture you like—fall-off-the-bone tender or with some bite—right at the beginning, and you’ll nail it every time. Even the first time! That’s because there’s no learning curve. You don’t have to know anything about live fire management or <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/wood-selection-guide">wood types</a>, and you don’t have to be a barbecue scholar. 
 
For our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-guide-to-modernist-bbq">modernist barbecue</a> recipes, we like to treat meats with a cure and glaze before cooking sous vide. The salt cure includes a small amount of sodium nitrite (you can omit it), which lends the ribs the appearance of a real-deal smoke ring, while the glaze includes liquid smoke, which imparts the wood smoke aroma that we associate with great ’cue. To mimic the bark on a long-smoked piece of meat, we give you the option of using our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bark-builder">Bark Builder</a>, which will produce a crust that&#39;s nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. 
 
EDITORS’ NOTE: This recipe has been retested, and we’ve updated the sous vide cook temperature and timing options to give you more control over the final texture of the ribs. We have also included the optional step of using our to achieve even better bark-like results.

Sous Vide Barbecue Ribs