Justin Hoyte's magical opener was witnessed by 28,229 fans on Teesside, before a controversial equaliser from Gary Madine temporarily tethered Boro back to second place.
But Ishmael Miller and second-half substitute Lukas Jutkiewicz scored the goals to edge their side above Crystal Palace, who must wait until Saturday's game at Peterborough to try and reclaim top spot.
Meanwhile ... over on the Dark Side ... Martin O'Neill has defended shot-shy Sunderland - but warned that they are not "too good" to get drawn into a relegation scrap.
The Black Cats have managed only 13 shots on target in nine league matches - by far the worst in the top flight and are the lowest scorers with just six goals.
O'Neill: "We have our own statistician in here and he tells me it depends who you look at.
"But what doesn't lie is the number of goals that we have scored.
"We are playing reasonably okay but we need to be more incisive.
"There's no such thing as safety - only seven or eight teams would have no thoughts other than being in this league next year.
"Then there is a group of about 12 teams who can never say they are comfortable at all, and we are one of those sides."