Have a look at our Traeger recipes for ribs, for lots of recipes, ideas, and tips for grilling and smoking ribs on your Traeger pellet grill.

Traeger Recipes for Ribs – From 321 Baby Back Ribs to 3 Hour Ribs + More!

3-2-1 Traeger Ribs

For a full explanation of the 321 method for ribs try this Traeger article:

https://www.traeger.com/learn/3-2-1-smoked-ribs-method

To summarise briefly and generally the 3-2-1 ribs method involves:

• Smoking the ribs directly on the pellet grills slow and low at 225F for 3 hours
• Wrapping the ribs tightly in foil to steam and braise in sugar and apple juice on the grills for 2 hours
• Removing the ribs from the foil and cooking for a final hour sauced

There are a few different variations here and there with the 3 2 1 method – some like to increase the temperature after the 3 hour smoking stage is over, some like to add different liquids, juices and oil/butter/honey to the foil, but all in all that’s about it.

This Traeger recipe for ribs involves using their delicious Pork and Poultry Rub and their Traeger ‘Que Barbecue Sauce but you can use your own favourite rubs and sauces.

This particular Traeger recipe for ribs is so interesting because it has a slightly different take on the classic 3-2-1 method – you smoke the ribs for 3 hours at the lower heat of 180F (usually it’s 225F) and then wrap the ribs in foil. The pellet grill (or whatever smoker you have) is then turned up to 225F and the wrapped ribs are cooked for 2 hours.

Finally you take the ribs out of the foil, sauce them and place them back on the grills for a final hour for 30-60 minutes until the sauce tightens up.

This allows you to really infuse smoke flavour at this lower temperature, and then you can recalibrate later by turning up the heat to 225F.

The results are hard to argue with.

Traeger Recipes for Ribs St Louis Style & Homemade BBQ Sauce

This is another great recipe from the Traeger website by Amanda Haas, cookbook author and founder of House of Haas Cooking School.

It involves using the St Louis Style cut for ribs (more on this below).

The ribs are dusted with Traeger Pork and Poultry Rub, and then cooked according to the 3-2-1 method described above except that the ribs are sauced and then cooked for only a final 10 minutes or so, shaving off some time instead of smoking for an hour at the final stage.

All in all it takes about 5 hours over apple wood.

The sweet, tangy, salty and delicious homemade BBQ sauce is brushed on the ribs and served on the side as well.

What are St Louis Style Ribs?

The St Louis style cut for spare ribs is taken from the pig’s belly after the whole belly of the animal has been removed.

This cut is larger, meatier and contains more fat than Babyback ribs. The best quality St Louis ribs are carefully trimmed down to get rid of any cartilage and bone making sure you get meaty, fatty, flavourful meat without the unpleasant inedible parts.

Traeger Ribs Pork Recipe

The 2 recipes above are both for Traeger Pork Ribs. If you would prefer to smoke beef ribs on your Traeger smoker, try below.

Easy Traeger Ribs Beef Recipe

Although this Traeger Beef Back Ribs recipe does take a long time to smoke it is probably one of the easiest smoker recipes. It’s about as close to ‘set it and forget it,’ as you’re likely to get in terms of smoking meat.

Beef back ribs pack a bold flavour as is so you don’t need to do too much to let those beefy flavours shine on through.

You simply dust the beef ribs with Traeger Beef Rub, insert a meat probe and smoke slow and low on your pellet grill over apple pellets at 225F until the internal temperature of the ribs is 205F.

This will take 8-10 hours give or take.

If you are concerned about the meat drying out, spritz it occassionally with beef broth/stock and/or apple juice.

A large cut of meat such as beef back ribs is unlikely to dry out at this low temperature, however.

Quick and Easy Traeger Recipe for Ribs in 3 Hours

We don’t always think about a ‘quick and easy,’ smoke on the Traeger pellet grill but this cool recipe for Babyback ribs from Traeger themselves shows us that it is possible to do. In fact it can bring about some pretty great results. Traeger ribs quick!

You don’t even need to wrap your ribs, as long as you are prepared to spray them every half hour or so.

You simply dust the ribs all over with Traeger Pork and Poultry Rub, place directly in the BBQ smoker, put a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the meat and smoke until an internal temperature of 202F – around 2.5 – 3 hours.

Traeger Ribs Quick!

Is it Possible to Smoke Ribs in 3 Hours?

If you want to smoke ribs hot and fast on the grills at 300F it certainly is possible. Just remember you will need to spray your ribs every half hour or so with apple juice or apple cider vinegar to stop them drying out.

Traeger Ribs Rub Recommendations

• Meat Church Holy Cow BBQ Rub
• Traeger Anything Rub
• Traeger Blackened Sasquatchewan Rub

Where are Traeger Grills Made?

Up until 2006 Traeger Grill Smokers were made in the USA by a family owned business. When new owners took over the business they outsourced to China, much like Pit Boss or Apple have also done.

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