I really like suggestions for supper. I love cooking, but I don’t always love coming up with what to cook. My husband suggested sweet and sour spareribs out of the blue and I thought that sounded like a great idea! I have heard amazing things about doing Instant Pot sweet and sour spareribs so I figured I would just use my mother-in-law’s sauce recipe and throw the ribs in there based on some cooking times research and word of mouth—and they turned out great!
Instant Pot Sweet and Sour Spareribs
- 3 lbs pork spareribs; cut small
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup vinegar
- ½ cup ketchup
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- Salt & pepper to season
- 1 tbsp corn starch + 2 tbsp water slurry
Cub ribs to size and season with salt and pepper in the Instant Pot.
Mix the brown sugar, water, vinegar, ketchup, and soy sauce together and pour over ribs. They can marinate for awhile in the fridge, or they are ready to cook right now. Since the meat was right out of the fridge, I let it marinate on the counter for about an hour before I started cooking.
Set your Instant Pot to “Manual” and on high for 25 minutes; make sure the valve is set to seal. When the pressure has been reached and the valve is sealed and it counts down the cooking time (it will beep 10 times to let you know it’s done), let it sit for about 5 minutes before manually releasing the valve.
Remove ribs from pot with a slotted spoon, turn Instant Pot on Sauté and let sauce come to a boil. Mix your corn starch and water together to make a slurry and add to boiling sauce, whisking constantly until thickened. If a thicker sauce is desired, make more of the slurry and add to sauce.

- 3 lbs pork spareribs; cut small
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup vinegar
- ½ cup ketchup
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- Salt & pepper to season
- 1 tbsp corn starch + 2 tbsp water slurry
- Cut ribs small and place in Instant Pot; salt and pepper to season.
- Mix the brown sugar, water, vinegar, ketchup, and soy sauce together and pour over ribs. They can marinate for awhile in the fridge, or they are ready to cook right now.
- Set your Instant Pot to Manual and on high for 25 minutes; make sure the valve is set to seal. When the pressure has been reached and the valve is sealed and it counts down the cooking time (it will beep 10 times to let you know it's done), let it sit for about 5 minutes before manually releasing the valve.
- Remove ribs from Instant Pot with slotted spoon and set it to Saute. Let sauce come to a boil and add the corn starch/water slurry to the sauce whisking constantly until thickened. Add more of the slurry if you want thicker sauce.

I like to serve this with my baked rice and a veggie. This was fall-off-the bone delicious and easy. If you do not own a pressure cooker, you can brown the ribs in a frying pan, make the sauce, pour over ribs and simmer, covered, for an hour and then add your slurry to thicken the sauce. Hope you enjoy!


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Made this last night and it was wonderful, have tried lots of sweet and sour and this was by far the best.
How do you cut the ribs are they easy to cut
Great recipe. I incorporated my moms recipe with this. Did 1/2 cup brown sugar and added 2 tablespoons of molasses. Cut one onion chopped fine,and 4 garlic cloves. Add 1/2 can of crushed pineapples. Marinade, definitely for a couple hours! Follow the rest of the directions and guarantee you will LOVE it!
Fantastic…the whole family enjoyed them with some flavored rice and a caesar salad.
Can I double the recipe?
It will be a tight squeeze, I’ve done it before but wouldn’t recommend doing it!
maybe just 1.5 the recipe then! 🙂 That’s what I do with a lot of recipes as I have a large family of 8
Delicious! I tried for the first time today and my children couldn’t get enough. So easy. Thank you for the recipe!
First time i used my instant pot duo! I was so scared! It was so easy and this recipe was amazing. Serving this for dinner tonight!
Thank you for sharing
Lanie
I was short on ingredients for the intended chicken dish planned for dinner. Searched quickly online with ingredients I did have. Tried this! Yummy!!! Thank you for sharing this! I also shared the link to this recipe with friends who are new to the Instant Pot.
Thanks for sharing!
I just tried this out as my FIRST instant pot recipe. Success! Thanks!