When you have an amazing dry rub mix for ribs, you don't even need to brush on the BBQ sauce. With just basic pantry staples, you can make our savory and sweet sugar free pork rub for all kinds of ribs, pork cuts, or even chicken in just 5 minutes. It's a Whole Lotta Yum!
This is the best low carb rib rub!
Up until recently, we always put both the dry rub mix and barbecue sauce on our pork ribs, but now that we've cut sugar from our diet and came up with a savory and flavorful rub mix for pork, we rarely add any barbecue sauce at all.
This is a rub recipe that's made without sugar, we do sometimes add a touch of golden monk fruit or stevia to give it a sweet and savory taste, but you can totally leave out the sweetener too.
Since we're just using dried spices and herbs, our recipe is also low carb, gluten-free, diabetic friendly, and keto friendly too.
We absolutely love to cook ribs in all sorts of ways, whether it is in a crockpot, on the grill, in an air fryer, in a pressure cooker, or baked in the oven.
This seasoning is our favorite and we always keep it in the pantry for making all sorts of ribs, plus we've used it on pork chops, and even chicken.
Use the rub on:
- Baby Back Ribs in the Oven
- Instant Pot Country Style Ribs
- Baby back ribs in Instant Pot
- Air fryer baby back ribs
- Air fryer country style ribs
Ingredients you'll need
By chance you don't have all of the ingredients in your pantry, shopping for spices in the grocery store bulk section is the cheapest way to buy dried herbs and spices.
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 tablespoon ground garlic powder
- 1 Tbsp ground onion powder
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 2 tablespoon coarse ground sea salt
- 1 tablespoon coarse ground black pepper
- ¼-½ teaspoon cayenne pepper - depending on how mild or spicy you want it
- 2 teaspoon golden monk fruit or ½ teaspoon stevia - optional, if you want a savory rub you can just skip the sweetener
Top tip
The pork seasoning mix makes 7 Tablespoons of dry rub, and you'll need 2+ tablespoon per pork ribs recipe. This will give you plenty of leftovers for other uses! You can also half the recipe if preferred.
How to make sugar free rib rub
- To make the dry rub mix, simply put the cumin, chili powder, ground garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and sweetener in a small bowl.
- Mix all rub ingredients until combined. It's that simple!
Jenn's tips
- There's no need to rinse pork ribs before adding the rub, and actually the USDA recommends against it due to potential splashing and cross contamination.
- We recommend coating the pork with the dry rub at least 15-30 minutes before cooking the meat, and ideally 2-4 hours before cooking. Don't leave it on longer than 24 hours before.
- You can brush a neutral oil on your meat before applying the rub mix or you can skip the oil too. Some people like to brush on mustard, but we've never tried that.
Storing
- We like to store extra spices and rubs in a 4 oz small mason jar. Ground spices last up to 2 years before they start losing their flavor, so this rub should last that long.
- Leftover rub can also be stored in the freezer, if preferred.
We use ¼ cup of rib mix for one rack of baby back ribs, and we used a little less for our country style ribs since we also add sauce to that recipe.
More healthy pork recipes
- Instant Pot Country Style Ribs
- Baby Back Ribs in Oven
- Instant Pot Bratwurst
- Baked Swedish Meatballs
- Low Carb Baked Pork Chops
If you loved our recipe, please leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and leave us a comment too! Connect with us on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube!
Recipe
Low Carb Rib Rub without Sugar
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 tablespoon ground garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon ground onion powder
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 2 tablespoon coarse sea salt
- 1 tablespoon coarse ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 2 teaspoon golden monk fruit or ½ teaspoon stevia (or to taste), using sweetener is optional!
Instructions
- Put all of the ingredients in a small bowl and mix until combined.
- Store in a 4 oz jar for up to 2-3 years, until it starts losing flavor.
- The recipe makes 7 Tablespoons of dry rub for pork, most recipes will call for 1-2 Tablespoons of dry rub mixture. You can half the recipe if preferred!
Jean says
I only have Sucralose which is 1:1 with sugar. How much would I need? Thanks!
Louise says
How do you cook these ribs in the oven?
Becky says
Do you think using Swerve Brown or Lakanto Golden would work in place of the stevia? I plan on smoking these ribs and am just not sure how they hold up with that kind of cooking. Thanks!
WholeLottaYum says
Hi Becky, yes, Swerve or Lakanta should work fine just add a little more of it since Stevia is much sweetener in a small consistency. I haven't personally tried to smoke ribs with those products, but they should hold up fine. My husband has a smoker and has used Stevia with good results.
Sheldon says
What does 1T mean, tablespoon or teaspoon? Google says it can mean either.
WholeLottaYum says
1 tablespoon! Thanks for asking! 🙂
Patricia Geisenheimer says
Sheldon, when you see a capital "T" next to a number... it most generally means Tablespoon. When it's a lower case "t" next to a number, it is usually for teaspoon. Hope this helps. 🙂
Chrissy says
Where is the rest of the directions?
WholeLottaYum says
Hi Chrissy~ Thanks for the feedback! I had a pork rib recipe ideas in the post to go with the dry rub but realized they were at the bottom of the post and not as easy to find. I've moved the recipe ideas up top. Here's a couple pork rib recipe ideas we use this dry rub for pork ribs on: https://wholelottayum.com/easy-instant-pot-country-style-ribs/ and also https://wholelottayum.com/baby-back-ribs-in-oven/ . Thanks again! Jen