Jerk Pork Jamaican Ribs

5 from 12 votes

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My jerk pork Jamaican ribs have a mouthwatering sweet and spicy seasoning of scotch bonnet peppers, allspice, and thyme. This spicy baby back ribs recipe is not for the faint of heart!

Jamaican Jerk Pork (close up, cut into slices)


Grilling and smoking season is upon us! If you’re wanting to go beyond the traditional grilled pork chops and smoked baby back ribs, it’s a great time to make Jamaican Jerk pork.

What is Jamaican Jerk?

Jerk seasoning has three primary ingredients: chile peppers, allspice berry, and thyme.  After researching and testing many different recipes, I learned that allspice berries and Scotch Bonnet peppers are key to the authentic flavor of Jamaican jerk.

Peggy Trowbridge Filippone wrote a great description of what Jamaican “jerk” is in About.com’s cooking section:

“Jerk is the process of spicing and grilling meats, poultry, and even vegetables, although the most popular are jerk pork and jerk chicken. The resulting food yields a spicy-sweet flavor and a tender texture.”

Peggy Trowbridge Filippone

She also wrote that the history of the term jerk is said to come from the word charqui, a Spanish term for jerked or dried meat, which eventually became jerky in English. Like most Caribbean islands, Jamaican foods are derivative of many different settlement cultures, including British, Dutch, French, Spanish, East Indian, West African, Portuguese, and Chinese.

Jerk Pork Jamaican Ribs

Beware, the seasoning is VERY spicy and not for the faint of heart (or taste buds)! After testing several renditions, here is my favorite version.

Because I already have a recipe for One Pan Jerk Chicken and Rice, I decided to make baby back Jamaican ribs this time. I prefer pork loin ribs (aka baby back), but you can use spare ribs (also known as country ribs) if you’d like.

The ribs marinate overnight, which allows the flavors to penetrate deep into the meat for maximum flavor. These do not disappoint and can be cooked on the grill or in the oven.

grilled Jamaican pork ribs (close up)

Jerk Seasoning Substitutions

In addition to spicy heat, there’s a lot of flavor in Jamaican jerk pork. If you don’t tolerate spicy food well, you can always cut the amount of peppers to suit your tastes. You can’t remove peppers after the fact, so start with a small amount and scale up if it isn’t spicy enough to suit your tastes.

  • Scotch bonnet chili peppers
    Scotch bonnets are hardly the hottest peppers in the world, but they have a Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of anywhere between 100,000 and 550,000! To put this into perspective, most jalapeño peppers have a rating of 2,500 to 8,000 SHU.

    If you want something with less kick, look for a sweet variety of scotch bonnets, called cachucha peppers. They’re grown in the Caribbean, so they may or may not be available in your area.

    If you’re unable to find cachuchas, substitute habanero peppers for the scotch bonnets.

Jerk Pork Marinade

CAUTION: Please protect your skin!

If you aren’t careful, the oils in chili peppers can and will burn your skin. To help prevent this from happening, I recommend that you wear kitchen gloves when you clean the peppers.

  1. Clean the peppers. Rinse the peppers under water, cut off and discard the tops, then transfer the peppers to the bowl of a food processor.
  2. Add remaining marinade ingredients. Place all other ingredients in the food processor bowl and blend until smooth. Scrape down the insides of the bowl to gather up the marinade and pour it into a small bowl.
photo collage shows how to prep pork ribs for grilling- before and after
  1. Trim the ribs.
    Clean the ribs up by removing the back membrane. Use the tip of a knife to make a slit that you can use to grab a hold of the membrane, then pull to remove. Don’t worry if you can’t remove it all; it’s edible, but very chewy.
  2. Rub and marinate the ribs. With clean kitchen gloves on, rub jerk sauce all over ribs. Wrap the ribs back up in the butcher’s paper (it has a great wax interior side to keep juices from dripping out or plastic wrap), and seal with aluminum foil. Place in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
marinated and smoked pork loin ribs, cut into individual pieces

Video: How to Cook Jerk Pork

To watch the process from start to finish, check out the video in the recipe card at the bottom of this post!

Instructions

If you’re unable to grill outdoors these can be made in the oven, see instructions in the recipe card below.

  1. Prep the grill and optional wood chips.
    Preheat your grill to 350°F.  For some smoky flavor, soak wood chips in water for at least 30 minutes.

    Brush the cooking grates clean with a wire brush. Add the soaked wood chips to the smoker box of your gas grill and close the lid.
  1. Add ribs to the grill.
    When the wood begins to smoke, unwrap the ribs and place on a sheet of aluminum foil bone side down. Put the ribs and aluminum foil on the grill. Close the lid, adjust the temperature to 250°F and cook for 1 1/2 hours, depending on thickness of ribs.

At this point, the Jamaican jerk pork ribs should be tender enough to pull apart with your fingers. You want the ribs to have an internal temperature of 195°F. Allow the meat to rest 5-10 minutes prior to cutting.

Want to make more Caribbean food?

If you like Jamaican food, try my Jamaican Pepper Sauce or this Caribbean inspired Tropical Pineapple Chicken.

For more ribs recipes check out my Sweet and Sour Sticky Ribs or these Pineapple Five Spice Pork Ribs.

Storing Leftovers

If there are any leftover ribs, strip the jerk pork from the bones and make BBQ Pork with Cheesy Grits. The leftover pork is shredded and simmered in BBQ sauce and served over cheesy grits for a Southern inspired dinner that’s sure to satisfy.
Enjoy!

spicy marinated baby back ribs
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This recipe post, originally published on Kevin Is Cooking on September 2013, was last updated on May 5, 2021.

Jamaican Jerk Pork (close up, cut into slices)

Jerk Pork Jamaican Ribs

5 from 12 votes
My jerk pork Jamaican ribs are rubbed with a mouthwatering sweet and spicy blend of scotch bonnet peppers, allspice, and thyme. This recipe is not for the faint of heart! Recipe video included.
Servings: 6 servings
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total: 1 hour 40 minutes

Ingredients 

Instructions 

  • Using gloves, cut the tops off the Scotch bonnet peppers and put in a food processor. Do not handle without gloves. Place all other ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Scrape inside of processor to get all of the rub mix and pour into a small bowl.
  • Clean the ribs up by removing the back membrane then with gloves, rub jerk sauce all over ribs. Wrap the ribs back up in the butcher's paper (it has a great wax interior side to keep juices from dripping out), and seal with aluminum foil or in a re-sealable plastic bag. Place in the refrigerator for 8 hours or up to 24 hours.

For the Grill

  • For low and slow cooking, set up the grill and preheat to 225°F. Add smoker chips per manufacturer's instructions if desired.
  • When the wood begins to smoke, unwrap the ribs and place, bone side down, meaty side up, on a sheet of aluminum foil. Put the ribs and aluminum foil directly on the grill. Cover the grill and and cook the ribs 4 to 5 hours for baby backs or 5 to 6 hours for spare ribs. At this point they should be tender enough to pull apart with your fingers. You want the ribs to have an internal temperature of 195°F.
  • Remove from the grill and let the ribs rest 10 minutes, then cut the ribs (See Note 2).
  • For faster cooking: Set up the grill and preheat to medium (325° to 350°F). 
  • Place the ribs, bone side down, in the center of the grate, cover the grill and cook the ribs for 2 1/2 to 3 hours for spare ribs or 1 1/2 to 2 hours for baby back ribs. At this point they should be tender enough to pull apart with your fingers. You want the ribs to have an internal temperature of 195°F. Allow to rest 5-10 minutes prior to cutting.
  • Remove from the grill and let the ribs rest for 10 minutes, then cut the ribs.

For the Oven

  • Preheat oven to 325°F.
    Place the ribs, bone side down, on top of a wire rack set in an aluminum foil lined baking tray and roast for 2 1/2 to 3 hours for spare ribs or 1 1/2 to 2 hours for baby back ribs. Halfway through, cover ribs with aluminum foil to protect them from drying out.
    At this point they should be tender enough to pull apart with your fingers. You want the ribs to have an internal temperature of 195°F. Allow to rest 5-10 minutes prior to cutting.

Video

Notes

  1. If Scotch Bonnet peppers are not available, substitute with habaneros.
  2. As the ribs cook, the meat shrinks and exposes the bone at the thinner end of the rib. When 1/4 inch of bone is exposed, the ribs should be done. For pork, the accepted finished temperature is 145°F. However, the collagen inside your ribs hasn’t had time to become gelatin for that perfect bite, which happens when the internal temperatures reach 165°F. It’s recommended to continue cooking ribs until they reach an internal temperature of 195°F to 200°F for that fall off the bone goodness.

Nutrition

Calories: 554kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 44g | Fat: 31g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Cholesterol: 167mg | Sodium: 931mg | Potassium: 806mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 18g | Vitamin A: 210IU | Vitamin C: 11.6mg | Calcium: 92mg | Iron: 3mg

The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

Course: Main
Cuisine: Caribbean, Grilling/Smoking, Jamaican
Have You Made This Recipe? Let Me Know on InstagramTag @keviniscooking or tag me #keviniscooking!
titled image (and shown): Jamaican Jerk Pork Ribs

Kevin

Whether in the kitchen or on the grill, you’ll find me cooking American favorites with a love for BBQ, Mexican and Tex Mex. I’m passionate about making tasty food because life’s too short to be bland!

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30 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Amazing!!!! Thank you for sharing your Amazing recipes.
    This is by far the best Jerk seasoning blend for Me….

  2. 5 stars
    Thanks, I love Jerk food from when I went to Jamaica. Going to try, as the bootle of Jerk Marinade from Waldos didn’t cut it for me.

  3. 5 stars
    Kevin I have tried a few of your recipes with the most recent being the beef enchiladas and based on the delicious outcomes, I am coming back toYour site weekly to follow the next one. Hit a slight issue in this one – I don’t eat pork. Would the result be equally good if I used beef?

    Looking forward to your response and thank you for such detailed recipes with home made sauces that make all the difference…I follow
    both your sites. Glad I do!!

    Sal

  4. 5 stars
    Just prepped this. Man, that paste smells amazing!
    Can’t wait to fire up the grill tomorrow.

  5. 5 stars
    I’m trying to eat these through the screen with my eyes, but it’s not working! I guess I’ll just have to make them myself soon… they look incredible. Plus hey, I’m always looking for an excuse to fire up the grill, and I’d say these look like a pretty decent excuse 🙂

    1. Well if you do make these, I hope hope they meet with your approval Fredrick! Let me know if they are authentic enough for you seeing as you are there. 🙂

  6. 5 stars
    He’s not kidding about the gloves when you touch a scotch bonnet pepper with bare hands (I bought a big bag of them on Amazon a while back). I thought I was brave and tough — within hours, I had big red welts all over my face. I used the Walkerswood scotch bonnet sauce for mine tonight (also bought on Amazon). There are many store/national-branded “jerk” marinades, but they’e all fake and dumbed down to local sensibilities — heavy on the sweet, low on the heat. And part of the jerk experience is the combination of heat and sweet. I’ve got a slab brining in the fridge right now. I like heat, but my body can’t tolerate so much now that I’m older. What I intend to do is to let them sit in a brine of Kosher salt, onions, cracked peppers, garlic, apple cider and lime juice. Plus, the perpetrating “jerk” marinade. I also added authentic Jerk seasoning that I got from GFS. What I intend to do tomorrow is to rub them down with the *real* jerk seasoning, smoke ’em with apple wood chunks (with a handful of allspice berries on the fire as well, and just let ’em go for 2 hours. I’ve made jerk chicken with the GFS seasoning and I was happy with the results. Not exactly Montego Bay or Rev. Robinson’s (RIP), but close enough.

    1. Man, so sorry to read your Scotch Bonnet Pepper woes there Daryl. That sounded horrible. Gloves are KEY! Thanks for stopping by, too.