Smothered Bacon Jam Pork Chops

Smothered Bacon Jam Pork Chop Ingredients

The ingredient list for this dish is fairly short. You need the following:

• Bone-in, center-cut pork chops at least 1-inch thick (preferably 1 ½-inch thick if you can find them),
• Down South Pimento Cheese
• One batch of my Bourbon Bacon Onion Jam
• Garlic
• Unsalted Butter
• Fresh Thyme
• Sugar
• Kosher salt and black pepper.

One optional step, but one that I recommend, is dry brining the pork chops, which I have outlined further down in this post.

The Bourbon Bacon Onion Jam is really something special. It's not just perfect for this recipe, you can use it as a burger topping, on sandwiches, or you can finely mince it and serve it on a charcuterie board. This takes roughly 1-½ hours to make, so it's recommended to make it ahead of time.

Cooking Methods

Dry Brining

An important part of obtaining a great, flavorful crust is to have dry meat when you sear it. Any moisture on the outside will create steam, which doesn't lead to browning. The best way to achieve a nice dry crust is to salt the outside of the meat and let it rest on a wire rack in the fridge, uncovered, the night before you cook. This seasons the meat all the way through and also dries the surface of the meat perfectly.

To learn more about the subject, check out my salt guide that has a section that goes over all of the basics for dry brining This guide does a deep dive on different salt types and varieties, when and how to use them, as well as an overview about dry brining.

Normally I don't use anything but salt in my dry brines, but for this recipe, I added ½ teaspoon of granulated sugar to each pork chop. This added a sort of glaze to the exterior of the pork, which helped everything get nice and brown.

Reverse Searing

One other key to this recipe is to "reverse sear" the pork chops. This entails baking the pork chops at a relatively low temperature (250°F) for 25 to 30-minutes until the pork registers about 110°F internally. The next step is searing both sides in a ripping hot skillet to form a crust and to finish cooking them through. This method does a few things:

• Evenly cooks the pork chop and let's you more accurately cook them to your desired temperature compared to other methods
• Provides a fantastic crust, which in turn adds a ton of flavor.
• You can add any aromatics you like while searing. Things like thyme, garlic, rosemary, shallots, etc. work perfect to add an extra layer of flavor.

It only takes several minutes per side to form a crust and to finish cooking the chops to your desired temperature. I like to add some unsalted butter, garlic cloves, and thyme to the skillet and baste the pork chops while they are searing.

One thing to note - your pork chops will be mostly grey-ish and won't look very appealing, but just trust the process. Because they'll go from this:

To This:

You are able to control how well-done your pork chops turn out with how long you sear them for. You can cook them to an internal temperature of 145-150°F for medium rare, 150-155°F for medium, 155-160°F for medium-well, and 160°F for well-done. The biggest determining factor for how long to cook these is how thick they are, so it's always better to defer to temperature vs. time.

The last, and quite possibly the most important part, is to allow everything to rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving. This allows the juices to stay in the meat, giving you a more flavorful experience.

Assembly

By all means, stop right here and enjoy your pork chops as is. Just garnish with some kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, and you'll be good to go! But if you really want to take these to the stratosphere - As the top them with some of my Bourbon Bacon Onion Jam and a hefty dollop of my Down South Pimento Cheese as everything rests! These two additions (that can be made ahead of time) really bring a ton of flavor to this dish.

Did you make this recipe for Smothered Bacon Jam Pork Chops?
Let me know in the comments below how yours turned out, and don't forget to leave a rating!

Recipe