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Country-Style Ribs substitute

Best substitute

Pork Shoulder or Pork Butt, Cut Into Strips

Use the same amount by weight as the country-style ribs you are replacing

Best for braising

Close match

Because they are shoulder, the best substitute is plain pork shoulder or pork butt cut into 2-inch-thick strips, which is genuinely identical meat at a lower price. Boneless pork shoulder steaks work the same way. If you have real ribs instead, spareribs or baby back ribs will cook far faster and taste leaner, so cut the braising or roasting time by roughly a third.

Other country-style ribs substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

Substitutes for Country-Style Ribs with ratios

  1. 2Boneless Pork Shoulder Steaks or Blade Steaks

    Close match

    Use the same amount by weight

    Pre-cut slabs from the same shoulder, usually about an inch thick.

    What changes
    Best for
    grilling, braising, skillet dinners, barbecue sandwiches

    Same muscle, same fat, same connective tissue, just thinner. Because they are flatter they cook through faster, so a recipe written for chunky country-style ribs will overcook them by 30 to 45 minutes. Check them at the two-thirds mark and pull them when a fork twists easily in the meat.

  2. 3Spareribs or St. Louis Ribs

    Different texture

    Use 1.5 lb bone-in ribs for every 1 lb country-style ribs

    Real pork ribs cut from the belly side of the animal, sold as full spareribs or trimmed St.

    What changes

    Louis racks.

    Best for
    barbecue, oven roasting, smoking, sticky glazed ribs

    These are genuine ribs, so buy more by weight to account for the bone. They carry less intramuscular fat and far less shredding collagen than shoulder, so the finished meat is chewier and pulls off the bone in strips instead of falling apart into shreds. They also cook faster: check at about two-thirds of the recipe's time.

  3. 4Baby Back Ribs

    Taste and texture differ

    Use 1.5 lb bone-in ribs for every 1 lb country-style ribs

    Leaner, curved ribs cut from along the pig's loin.

    What changes
    Best for
    grilling, oven barbecue, quick rib dinners

    The leanest option here, and the one most likely to disappoint if you follow a country-style recipe as written. Baby backs can dry out inside two hours in a 300F oven, where shoulder is still improving at three. They taste milder and more like pork loin, and the texture is tender-firm rather than lush. Cover them tightly and cut the cooking time substantially.

  4. 5Bone-In Pork Shoulder Chops

    Close match

    Use the same amount by weight

    Thick chops cut across the shoulder, with a piece of blade bone still in.

    What changes
    Best for
    braising, slow cooker, skillet-to-oven cooking, smothered pork

    Excellent for anything braised, because the bone and its collagen give the sauce more body than boneless strips do. Same flavour as country-style ribs with a slightly richer gravy. Watch out for confusing these with lean loin chops at the meat counter, which look similar but will turn dry and stringy in a long braise.

  5. 6Beef Chuck, Cut Into Strips

    Different taste

    Use the same amount by weight

    Boneless beef chuck roast cut into thick strips, the beef equivalent of a well-marbled shoulder cut.

    What changes
    Best for
    braising, slow cooker, barbecue-sauced dishes, stews

    The right choice when you want the same cooking behaviour but do not eat pork or do not have any. Chuck has the same generous fat and collagen, so it goes tender on a similar schedule and shreds the same way. The flavour is obviously beefy rather than sweet-porky, so a barbecue sauce made for pork will taste less balanced against it. Add a little vinegar to the sauce to cut the extra richness.

What is Country-Style Ribs?

Country-Style Ribs is Country-style ribs, also sold as country style pork ribs or pork shoulder ribs, are not ribs at all but boneless or partly boned strips cut from the fatty blade end of the pork shoulder, which is why they behave like pot roast rather than like a rack.

Cooking tips

  • The single most useful thing to know is that country-style ribs are shoulder, not ribs. That means they want the treatment you would give a pot roast: low heat, a long time, and enough moisture or covering to keep them from drying out. Grilling them hot and fast the way you would a rack of baby backs leaves them tough, because the collagen never gets a chance to melt.
  • Cook them to doneness, not to temperature. Pork shoulder is not done at 145F the way a loin chop is; it needs to run up to roughly 195F to 205F internally before the connective tissue breaks down. Judge it by feel instead: a fork should twist in the meat with almost no resistance.
  • Because they are cut from the shoulder, some strips include a bit of blade bone and some are pure boneless meat, and the two cook at different rates. Sort them by thickness before they go into the pan and pull the thin ones out early rather than cooking the whole tray to the same clock.
  • If you swap in real ribs, cover the pan tightly with foil for the first two-thirds of the cook and only then uncover to glaze. Ribs have far less internal fat than shoulder, and an uncovered oven will dry them out well before the recipe's stated time is up.
  • Sear them hard before braising, in batches so the pan stays hot. Shoulder has enough fat and surface area to build serious browning, and that fond is most of the flavour of the finished sauce.

Frequently asked questions

Are country-style ribs actually ribs?

No, and this is the source of most of the confusion. They are cut from the blade end of the pork shoulder, near where the shoulder meets the loin, and are then sliced into rib-shaped strips. Some pieces contain a sliver of blade bone, but there is no rib bone in them. Treat them as shoulder in every respect, including cooking time.

Can I use pork loin or pork chops instead?

You can, but only if you change the cooking method. Loin is lean and has almost no collagen, so a three-hour braise turns it dry and stringy rather than tender. If loin is what you have, cook it quickly to about 145F internal, then slice it and sauce it, and accept that you are making a different dish rather than a substitute for slow-cooked shoulder.

Can I just leave them out?

Not really, since in nearly every recipe that calls for country-style ribs the pork is the dish itself rather than a seasoning. What you can do is substitute freely within the shoulder family, because pork shoulder, Boston butt, shoulder steaks and shoulder chops are all the same meat in different shapes and any of them will work.

Are country-style ribs the same as pork shoulder ribs?

Yes, those are two labels for the same product, and you may also see them sold as country style pork ribs or blade-end pork strips. Any of those names on a package means shoulder meat cut into strips, which is why the cooking approach is identical regardless of what the label says.

Why did mine come out tough?

Almost certainly undercooking rather than overcooking. Pork shoulder passes through a tough stage on the way to tender, and if you pull it while the collagen is still setting up it will be chewy. Give it another 30 to 45 minutes covered, with a little liquid in the pan, and test again with a fork rather than a thermometer.

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