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Pork chops are an easy, ready-in-minutes dinner when you’re prepped for success and have the right tools. You only need a few ingredients plus your reliable cast-iron skillet, and your chops will cook up tender and juicy with a bold, super savoriness and porcine richness. A nice and hot cast-iron pan is essential for achieving a deeply browned crust on your chops, helping with both caramelization and the Maillard reaction. This brings plenty of salty, umami-packed flavor along with a touch of sweetness.
Which pan should you use? Well, celebrity chef and humanitarian José Andrés uses a cast-iron pan almost every day. He favors the Castey brand from Spain, which is carried by retailers online. American-made company Lodge’s pre-seasoned skillets with teardrop handles are another popular choice.
When choosing your cut, boneless pork chops should always be the second choice. Get the chops with the bone because bone-in pork chops are less likely to dry out. The bone lessens the surface area of exposed muscle, keeping more moisture in your chop while it cooks. And, for super delicious pork chops, you should use a little vegetable oil to stand up to the heat of the pan. Olive oil can work, too, but its lower smoke point means you won’t be able to get a high-heat sear going, which could deprive you of both tenderness and unctuous caramelization. Once you’ve got your meat and oil and the pan is ready to go, it’s time to put your attention to cooking your cast-iron pork chops.
Tips for cooking pork chops in a cast-iron skillet
You’ll want to generously salt and pepper your pork chops before they go in the pan. A nice coarse sea salt or kosher salt is ideal, but table salt works just fine. Not preheating your skillet is a major mistake, especially with cast iron, which has less even heat distribution. To more evenly heat your cast-iron skillet, you may want to move it around the flame as it heats on the stove, so it’s not just hot in the center and cooler on the edges. Add your oil and get it good and hot. Throw on a few drops of water to make sure it’s ready to go. They should pop and sizzle and evaporate almost immediately. You can even preheat a cast-iron pan in the oven at the desired temperature to get the most even heating.
Add some butter to the pan and a sprig of rosemary, maybe even a garlic clove or two while the chops cook, spooning the butter over the top to add more flavor, caramelization, and help tenderize them. To get your pork chops to the right temperature, you’ll want a meat thermometer to read 145 degrees Fahrenheit for medium rare, 150 to 155 degrees Fahrenheit for medium, and 155 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit for medium well. They’ll cook up nice and tender with a beautiful crust in just two to three minutes on each side. This method is so quick and easy that the hardest part will be choosing the side dish.
