What to Do with Spare Rib Trimmings?

Rib trimmings are leftovers from butchering pigs, sheep, and other livestock.

Due to their attractive aesthetic value, they’re often wasted. However, you can make beautiful ornamental sculptures out of these ribs.

So, what to do with spare rib trimmings?

Spare rib trimmings are a great ingredient for sous-vide cooking.

Sous-vide cooking is a cooking technique that involves vacuum sealing ingredients in a bag and cooking them in a water bath for a long time.

This cooking method produces very tender meat with an unbelievable flavor.

Furthermore, cooking the meat with vegetables ensures a nutritious meal. The meat and vegetables can also be spiced up with a sauce of your choice.

Spare rib trimmings have an amazing flavor and make a perfect base for any sous-vide dish.

The meat is tender and juicy and makes for a great main course or side dish. However, they can be tough if cooked for too long.

Sous-vide cooking requires precise temperature control to ensure the meat is cooked perfectly.

Contents

What Are Trimmed Spare Ribs?

Spare ribs are taken from the upper side of the pig and consist of the loin, belly, and the back bone of the animal, including the spare rib bones.

Trimming the rib tips and cartilage from ribs is tricky and requires a steady hand.

While cutting the trimmed pieces into strips is easier, it may lead to the loss of some tasty parts that are often discarded as waste during butchering.

Louis-style ribs are cut from the lower part of the pig’s rib cage and contain four large bones which are easy to separate into individual pieces of meat after removing the fat and membrane from the bone.

The bones add great flavor to the meat and make a great base for soups and stews.

While you may have the butcher cut them for you should prefer to remove the membrane yourself using a paring knife before you cook them.

This will make your preparation process easier and save some of the precious juices from the cut meats to season your dish.

What to Do with Spare Rib Trimmings?

Skirt

The skirt is the underside of the pig’s leg and contains lots of fat which makes it an ideal ingredient for making lard or rendering fat for cooking purposes.

After removing the fat and skin from the piece, you can cut it into small cubes for stewing and braising dishes or simply fry it for a crispy treat.

Also, you can stuff it with rice and spices to make a hearty breakfast burrito or use it to make delicious tacos with guacamole and salsa.

Some cooks say that this piece is also good for soups and stews, but personally I don’t like the flavor it produces.

Skirt meat, on the other hand, makes a fantastic stir-fry when combined with vegetables and sauces of your choice.

You can also mix it into a taco filling recipe or add it shredded to your favorite casserole recipe before baking in the oven.

In addition, you can use it to make a sausage stuffing by sautéing it with your favorite herbs and spices and adding a few tablespoons of chopped nuts for a crunchy texture.

The addition of a little soy sauce is also recommended to give the dish a great Asian twist.

One alternative is to slice the skirt into thin strips and grill it over a hot fire until cooked thoroughly.

Serve the beef in a stir-fry or a salad, with rice on the side, if desired.

This amount may also be used to stuff a pork roast or a turkey before roasting it in the oven.

You may alternatively stew the sliced pieces in a spicy tomato sauce and serve it as a side dish or as a topping over pasta.

For an extra kick, serve this dish with a spoonful of sour cream on top. You may also use the remaining pieces to make patties for hamburgers or kabobs for a BBQ party.

You may also use the scraps in your omelets or scrambled eggs as a filling.

You may also fry them for breakfast along with bacon bits, bell peppers and onions.

Make sure you do not throw out the leftover stock.

Pork Fat Trimmings

If you’ve never dealt with hog fat trimmings before, you should know that this is one of the most flavorful parts of a pig’s body that is thrown away on a daily basis.

First and foremost, be aware that pork fat trimmings are a rich source of good cholesterol and essential vitamins such as A and D.

The choices we’re considering will be more time-consuming to prepare, but well worth the effort in the end.

This is especially the case if you plan to render the fat and store some for later use in cooking.

If you decide to render the fat right away, you can simply discard the pieces after the rendering process is completed.

Use your discretion in determining the amount of fat to trim from the meat pieces – don’t go overboard with the trimming.

Before creating a chili, casserole, or pot roast, you’ll want to cut some of the excess fat off the pieces as well.

This is easy to accomplish by cutting away any visible pieces of extra fat and leaving a thin layer of fat on the slices you’re planning to use in your dish.

If you’ve chosen to ground the beef yourself, you can save the trimmings and grind them with your ground beef for a leaner final product.

Cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens retain heat extremely well, so they’re great for browning meat and simmering sauces and other liquids.

Rib Tips

Make the error of using rib tips in a stew and you’ll wind up with a tough piece of meat that doesn’t take well to long cooking.

They are both spare rib tips and baby back ribs, which are cut from the rib section of the animal and are generally used for slow roasting or grilling.

You may smoke the rib tips, but take care not to overcook them.

You may even smoke them both separately to create two unique flavors that complement each other perfectly when served together in the same meal.

Rib tips should be sliced into 1/2-inch thick pieces and cooked slowly over indirect heat for several hours.

Before you remove them from the smoker, you can glaze them with a mixture of ketchup and brown sugar to enhance the flavor of the barbecue sauce you are serving with the meal.

You can also shred the rib tip meat and serve it as a side dish with your meal or use it in a soup recipe, such as pulled pork chili or beef stew.

How to Use Spare Rib Trimmings in Your Meal

Make Meatballs with Leftover Trimmings

Delicious Homemade Meatballs are a delicious way to use leftover meat trimmings.

Leftover trimmings are pieces of meat that are too small to be eaten by humans or too small to sell as meat.

Many restaurants throw these trimmings out every day, but you can make a delicious meal for a fraction of the price.

Simply collect the trimmings and combine them with a few simple seasonings and spices to make a delicious and nutritious meal.

This is an excellent way to reduce waste and save money on your next meal.

Add the Trimmings to Your Pizza

Now that you’ve cooked your spare rib dinner, you may be left with a bit of meat from the bones.

Not to worry, this meat can be used in a variety of tasty dishes. For example, you can use the meat as a topping on pizza or pasta dishes, or you can add it to soup or stew for a hearty meal.

You can also add the meat to ground meat for burgers or meatballs. You can also make sausages using the meat.

The meat can also be cut into cubes and fried in a pan to make tasty snacks. The meat can be used in many dishes, so don’t be afraid to use every bit of it.

Trimmings with Bean Soup

Bean soup is something every cook should try at least once.

It can be a nice change from the typical vegetable or meat-centric soups. Bean soup can easily be made by adding beans and some broth to a pan and simmer until everything is done.

The broth can be made from scratch, but canned broth works as well. Adding the trimmings from your spare rib can make this soup taste even better because spare rib trimmings have a delicious flavor.

Add some noodles or rice to your meal and you have a great meal.

Trimmings to Make Cutlet

Cutlet is a type of meat dish made by mixing minced meat with other ingredients such as bread, egg, onion, and seasonings.

You can make cutlet from different types of meat such as beef, pork, or chicken. However, cutlet made from spare rib trimmings is exceptional.

The meat from spare rib trimmings is leaner and more tender than that from other types of meat, so the resulting cutlet is tastier and juicier. It’s also easy to make cutlet from spare rib trimmings.

First, cut the spare rib trimmings into thin strips. Then, mix the strips with other ingredients such as bread, egg, onion, and seasonings to make the cutlet.

Finally, cook the cutlet in the oven or frying pan. Now that you know how to make cutlet from spare rib trimmings, you can make a delicious cutlet anytime you want.

Trimming Can Be Used in Your Dinner

It turns out that trimmings are delicious!

In fact, many people don’t realize that trimmings are edible. But it’s true!

You can trim off a lot of the fat from spare rib trimmings and then use them to make meatballs or stir fry.

How To Trim Spare Ribs

To get started, you’ll first want to trim off any excess fat that may be left on the ribs.

You may also remove any silver skin that is covering the ribs, as this tough tissue will not break down during the cooking process.

After removing the fat and skin, you can then cut the ribs into individual sections that will fit into your pan or other cooking vessel of choice.

Once you’ve done this, you can season your ribs as desired before cooking them in any of your favorite ways. Place the rack of spare ribs,

Turn the rack so it’s fat side up and pour 1/2 cup water into the pan around the spareribs.

Around the centre of the rack, make cuts about 1/2 inch apart to thread the garlic cloves and whole peppercorns into the meat.

This is known to help flavour the meat during the cooking process.

To give the rack an even coating of the spice rub, sprinkle the spice mixture over the spareribs and rub it in with your fingers.

Remove the membrane with a sharp knife or kitchen scissors, then place the racks in a shallow baking dish and cover them with plastic wrap.

Finally, find the point on the rib bones where they seem most even in size and cut there to separate them.

Remove the rib tips by cutting as close to the bone as possible and then discard them.

How To Store Spare Rib Trimmings

Skirt meat and rib tips can be stored in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days in a sealed container, or frozen for up to a month and thawed in the fridge overnight before using it.

You must freeze the trimmed pieces of pork within two hours of cutting them to prevent bacterial growth.

To prevent misunderstanding, separate the rib tips from the rest of the pork before freezing it.

If you utilized the hog fat trimmings to season your spare ribs, you can store those in the freezer until you’re ready to use them.

Otherwise, utilize the fat immediately.

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