Ever wonder how to prepare those big pork chops with the bone in without drying it out or using your oven?

So did we.

I think everybody struggles every now and again when preparing pork chops. The struggle is not drying that wonderful pork out. The struggle is not seeing the juice flow when you first cut into that piece of meat. The struggle is forcing yourself to eat that dried out piece of jerky because you can’t bring yourself to toss it out.

So I will just quickly tell you the secrets.

Get a good crust on the meat with high heat. Baste the pork chop while cooking. Allow it to rest almost as long as it cooked. That’s it.

You do these four things and you will be serving up the juiciest, more flavorful pork chops you have ever tasted.

Let’s break it down in some easy steps.

Cooking A Pan Fried Thick Cut Pork Chop

First things first. Have you ever pan-fried a pork chop and it curls up on you? When that happens it will cause the pork chops to cook unevenly. Here’s an easy tip to keep that from happening.

Lay them out on a cutting board and taking a sharp knife, just cut through the fat straight down every 2 inches or so. As the pork chop cooks, the cuts will expand and allow the chop to stay flat giving you an even cook.

Once you have that complete, season the pork chops liberally with salt and cracked black pepper. Go ahead and push that salt and pepper into the meat, making sure it will adhere when it’s time to go into the hot pan.

Set the pork chops to the side and begin to prepare the other ingredients.

Grab 4-5 cloves of garlic and give them a smash with the flat of a knife. We only want to crush them a little, allowing the garlic to infuse with the oil when we toss them in. Prepare the onion by giving them a rough chop. You want big pieces of onion, not diced.

Put a medium-sized skillet over medium-high heat and add the oil. Allow that oil to get nice and hot.

When ready, add the pork chops to the pan, laying away from you as to avoid any pesky hot oil popping up on you.

Note: For this recipe, we used bone-in pork chops that were close to 1 inch thick and weighed about 12 ounces each. Our pork chops were cooked 8 minutes each side. Depending on the size of the pork chops, you will cook them from 4 to 8 minutes each side.

Before turning, check the cooked side for doneness. You should see a wonderfully caramelized cook. Then turn over to the other side.

When you have turned it, turn the heat down to medium and add the butter, garlic, onion, and sage leaves. Move the garlic, onion, and sage around in the butter and olive oil, pressing them here and there to release those wonderful oils.

Tip the pan and using a spoon, take the butter and olive oil and begin to baste the cooked top of the pork chop. This will infuse those flavors as well as keep it moist. Baste often as it cooks the additional time.

The butter and oil will begin to change color to a beautiful nut-brown color and the smells in your kitchen will be amazing!

Using some tongs, sear the edges of the pork chop by holding it vertically and cook each side of the pork chop until the fat has rendered sufficiently. A minute or so should be sufficient.

Check the other side for doneness. If you want to make sure the pork chops are done, use an instant-read thermometer. This is a particularly useful tool in the kitchen and if you don’t have one I highly recommend you get one.

When cooking is complete, remove the pan from heat and place the pork chops to rest on a cutting board. Allow them to rest the same time you cooked them.

This will give all that super-heated moisture in the meat the time to calm down and redistribute. This will assure that juicy tender pork chop versus the Sahara Desert pork chop.

After 5-10 minutes of resting, plate the pork chops and drizzle the butter and olive oil with the garlic, onions, and sage over the meat and serve.

We have cooked this many times now and each time it comes out amazing. You can play around with the herbs and aromatics as well. Instead of onion and sage, perhaps some thyme instead? Any aromatics with a brown butter sauce will make the bone-in pork chops sing!

We do love that sage and butter sauce, though!

Remember, the big secrets of juicy, moist pork chops are to get that sear, baste the chops, and allow to rest. Everything else is entirely up to you. Give it a try and let us know how it turned out!

Need a side to go with these amazing pork chops? Try our Roasted Green Beans and Mushroom dish. Or if you’re following the Keto path pair this up with an incredible Loaded Cauliflower Mash!

Thick Cut Bone-In Pork Chop Recipe

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