Yes, YOU CAN cook pork chops in the oven without turning them into shoe leather.
Leaner meats like pork tend to dry out pretty fast if you don’t know what you are doing. No worries because we’ve got some simple solutions to keep those chops succulent and downright delicious.
First off, choose pork chops that have a bone. This helps prevent a piece of meat that is sliced so thin that you have zero chance of sucking the life out of it.
Avoid cooking those chops from cold temperatures. Instead, allow them to sit out for approximately 20 minutes. Cooking frigid pork chops leads to the meat cooking too fast whether you are throwing them in a pan or an oven.
Marinades will not only add more juice to your chops but will kick up the flavor you need in this meat which can be bland.
The proper internal temperature of your pork chops should be 145 degrees F. If you were raised on pork chops and apple sauce in the 1980s, your pork chops were no doubt always overdone thanks to a parasitic worm called trichinella. The USDA has since updated its guidelines in the 1990s and you don’t have to cook your pork to death anymore.
Oven-baked pork chops can cook anywhere from 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees F. And you don’t even have to worry about flipping them halfway through.
Give them a rest. You should always allow the meat to rest for approximately five minutes after cooking them. But for pork, this is especially important. A good three minutes or so should do the trick to keep those juices locked in.
Stop by our store, grab some pork chops and put these tips to the test!
