Pork, fresh, spareribs, separable lean and fat, raw

Fresh pork spareribs are cut from the belly side of the rib cage and include both meat and a generous amount of connective tissue and fat, which is exactly what makes them so well suited to slow cooking methods like low-and-slow barbecue, braising, or oven roasting wrapped in foil. The long cooking time breaks down the connective tissue into gelatin, leaving the meat tender enough to pull from the bone, and they're classically finished with a dry rub or basted with barbecue sauce toward the end of cooking so the sugars caramelize without burning. They're a backyard grilling staple and pair well with coleslaw, cornbread, or baked beans.

Choose spareribs with a good meat-to-bone ratio and a moist, pink to red color, and keep them refrigerated for a day or two before cooking or freeze them if you're planning further ahead. A serving has 277 calories per 100 g basis with 15.5 g of protein and just 81 mg of sodium before any rub or sauce is added, so the sodium in a finished rack largely comes from seasoning rather than the raw meat itself. Because they're also 23.4 g fat per 100 g, they're best treated as a special-occasion cut rather than an everyday lean protein.