I don't eat much meat anymore because it's just too damn expensive. I had a craving for meatballs last week, but at my usual grocery store, I found it was way out of my budget – an eye-popping $8.99 for a pound of 80% lean ground beef (80% used to be the crappy affordable stuff!!)
Unfortunately, I got some blood work back today and I'm deficient in iron and a few other things, and my doctor suggested adding some meat to my diet a couple times a week. So on the way home, i stopped at a store I don't normally frequent, and I was looking over their meat dept to compare pricing. Beef and chicken were unaffordably high here, same as everywhere else. However, I saw tons of pork marked down – some packs were marked down to half price, others BOGO. An employee said they mark down their fresh meat around a certain time every day, and that savings on chicken and beef are hard to come by, but there's always lots of pork left because fewer people think to buy it.
So I scored lots of lean pork loin center chops at an amazing price. I sliced one package up into strips and used it like chicken in a stir fry, and it came out pretty good, though a bit dry. Not inedibly dry, but it needed a lot more sauce than chicken. There are also cuts like "country style" chops and ribs, big roast-sized hunks of pork, and other cuts. I'm looking for ideas and tips on all things pork – what cuts do you guys like, and how do you use them? And how can I make these lean chops a little less dry next time?
by apocalypsemeowmont
18 Comments
Dang, same cut is 3.27 / pound here in Missouri, just picked some up today. I love a good pork steak on the grill. I’ve learned other parts of the country don’t have pork steaks, but they’re just a bone in pork butt sliced into steaks. The country style ribs can be good too, I like cooking them low and slow on the smoker. Baked pork loins are the biggest hit with the wife and kids though, and run about 3.59 / pound.
Pork is wonderful! I’d try and get the thicker cuts if you can as the thinner ones dry out very fast, but if all that is on-sale is the thin then I’d buy that too. I make sour cream pork chops often, all you need is 8 oz of sour cream and a few other things. I’ll leave a link to a recipe I used as a base, but I make it a little different, I add a can of cream of mushroom soup and 1 packet of ranch dressing mix to make a sort of sour cream gravy. You can use pasta, rice, or broccoli (also cheap!) and put the pork chops & sour cream gravy over any of those. I don’t bread them and I use a slow cooker, but you can do the same thing in a pan. My favorite is sour cream pork chops over broccoli, yum!
I change it up a lot, here’s the link.
[https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/24037/sour-cream-pork-chops/](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/24037/sour-cream-pork-chops/)
‘Affordable’ is a completely relevant term. I too am on a tight budget. Pork offers a lot of value both in protein and wallet.
Cut up and make into stir fry or fried rice.
Saute with peppers, onions and parboiled potatoes.
Look up ‘pork soup recipes’
Grill them and serve with mashed potatoes
You need to think of things in their most broken down forms. Protein, starch, veg, fat. Most things are interchangeable with each other.
Build up a solid spice rack and you’re GTG 👍🏼🏆🌈
I’m German Filipino so pork is my go to meat.
I make very thin breaded pork cutlets. Last time I bought 2 large pork loins that were on sale I cut them into 27 cutlets. I do the classic 3 step breading and use homemade bread crumbs. Husband likes it with Japanese katsu sauce and rice, I like it with mashed potatoes and apple sauce.
For country style ribs I cut them into chunks and make a marinade of soy sauce, citrus, brown sugar, red pepper flakes garlic and ginger and skewer the meat on the bbq. Everyone loves this with sweet chili sauce and white rice.
If there is bone in pork, I like to make sinigang which is a tamarind flavored soup. Some people make it with salmon but my fave is pork. Tamarind can be hard to find if you don’t have an East Asian, Indian or Hispanic market nearby but Filipinos elsewhere substitute rhubarb. It’s a lovely sour soup made from bone in pork and tamarind (rhubarb) flavored with fish sauce (available at most supermarkets) you can put whatever veggies you want cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, green beans, okra, radish and onion are popular. I just put the pork in a slow cooker with water on high for 4.5 hours and add the seasonings and veggies later.
Also endless uses for ground pork. I actually hate ground beef and make American food like spaghetti and meat sauce with ground pork. I grind my own pork to save money and use the bones for soup. My husband loves chorizo as a breakfast meat and we use ground pork for a lot of East Asian recipes like mapo tofu and for filling dumplings.
With thin cuts, you can do a cheese steak type of sandwich. it does well with stir fry. or just pan fry then make a sandwich or cut and put on a salad. There are several dishes that used rolled meat. you can mince it up and treat as a burger or do lettuce wrams/cups.
It would work well in “hot pots” or other soups.
I would tenderize it and bread it like chicken and fry it. But breaded fried meat is one of my favorite things.
Cook it on low heat and check with a meat thermometer as it cooks fast and can get tough.
We shred it with bbq sauce and put it in wraps.
Two favorite comfirt meals with pork chops. Sooper Slow cooker chops.2 or three ribs celery,medium onion and green pepper chunked,1 one pound well trimmed pork chops salt and pepper to to taste garlic powder or a garlic herb blend plus 1 can of tomato soup or cream of mushroom soup plus a quarter can of water.
Put all ingredients and mix well. Cook on high 3 to 4 hours or low 5 to six hours. Serve over rice.
Pork piccata (capers, lemon juice, etc.) with mashed potatoes.
I pan cook and top (after removing the chops to keep warm) mix apple slices sautéed in butter, once soft add blue cheese crumbles to taste until it’s incorporated into the apples. It’s better than it sounds.
For stir fry’s try velveting. My family usually just marinates the pork in cornstarch, soy sauce, and rice wine but some people add baking soda as well. Let it sit while you chop the veggies and then stir fry as you would normally
I make a lot of chops, but usually 2” thick cuts from Costco. You can get a 9 pack for ~$16-$20. It’s a hefty pack.
One of my favorite ways to make them is to throw avocado oil in a pan, and sear them. Make some balsamic Brussels and a baked sweet potato.
I also smoke them on the smoker for maybe 90 minutes at 250? Serve with simple greens and smashed potatoes.
Grilled – rub with mustard, season with your favorite rub (you can do this for any of the above scenarios)
I rarely put chops in something, though id suspect they are fine for things like stir fry; I just find them satisfying on their own and treat them a lot like I would a steak.
Velvet the pork strips before stir frying. A scant teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in a tablespoon of water for a pound of meat. 15 minutes, rinse, pat dry. Season as you normally do.
It also really helps ground meat, too. Use a little bit less and no rinse afterwards. I mix my seasonings in and fry right away. Makes it brown more easily and retain more moisture.
Very surprised that you think $7.49/lb is good. Pork tenderloin is very often on sale for under $5.50/lb CAD. A quarter loin is sometimes $3.50/lb. Butt/should regularly somewhere in between.
Pork chops can be great. Go for the thickest slices you can get your hands on. The new guideline is 145’F/63’C for pork now.
If you can get a roast without too much connective tissue/fat, you can slice them, and bread them as schnitzel. Tenderloin butterflied and pounded on with a meat tenderizer is *amazing* for this. Try different kinds of gravies. I like Japanese style curry (curry tonkatsu), you can get them in shelf-stable cubes that you dissolve in simmering water or broth. Or American-South sausage (white) gravy. I like using different kinds of mushrooms (whatever’s on sale – but I routinely see oyster, beech, mini king oyster, “seafood,” enoki on sale all the time) in a classic mushroom (and onion or shallot) gravy (with garlic).
These are also good candidates for cutting into big strips, marinating, and grilling/roasting as Cantonese BBQ pork.
Roasts with lots of connective tissue (not necessarily fat) are prime for slow cooking. Super easy in a slow cooker with a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup, packet of dried onion soup (I’ve heard of using a packet of dry ranch, but that’s unavailable to me). Stab it halfway through with a long thin knife, and stick a clove of garlic down the channel, repeat. Fill up the sides (up to halfway) with chunks of carrot, potato, onion. Parsnips are worth trying if you’ve never. Salt the veg before adding. No additional liquid necessary.
Low for 6 (if your cooker automatically goes into keep warm) for a roast-ey roast that you can slice. High for 6 (then keep warm), or longer, for something that you can shred and incorporate immediately with the cooking liquid.
Pork bones, trotters (for the collagen/gelatin) make incredible stock if you have the time. Perfect for “fancy” ramen. If you get “knuckles” instead of trotters, they can be used likewise, but you can also roast them German-style with crispy skin.
If the pork belly comes skin on, Cantonese roast pork is an option. Without the skin, it’s what’s used for Japanese chashu for ramen. You can also chop up pork belly and lightly dry batter and fry/shallow-fry/air-fry.
Pork ribs – if chopped into ~1″ lengths of bone – is great for all kinds of Cantonese “spare ribs” recipes. Steamed (lots of various seasonings – my fav is fermented black bean and garlic), fried.
Speaking of steamed, ground pork makes good “steamed meat patties” and you can fold in a chopped up combination including anything like shitake mushrooms, wood ear fungus, water chestnuts, diced dried/fresh shrimp/prawns, dried scallops, salted (fermented) fish, salted (fermented) shrimp, dried Chinese sausage, pickled mustard greens (all kinds of other pickles work well too), etc.
Pork hearts, tongue – slow cooked in marinade (my preference is chu hou and not much else other than soy sauce – aromatics added later), then further marinated – can be delicious, delectable, and inexpensive.
Fried pork ! Add sazon and adobo fry in oil. Its a puerto rican dish
I sear those quick with some chopped mushrooms onions green pepper right then pour a can of diced tomato by del Monte with the same or great value / aldi whatever you can find yeah? And then plop some tomato paste down. Serve with potatoes / rice / pasta. I just got a huge side of pork tenderloin from Sam’s at like, 2$ something a pound and it’s literally the entire length of my counter top. I have to butcher it down into Ziploc bags and so not looking forward to it.
Btw ground turkey has iron in it and you can get the lb rolls of the festive brand at Walmart very cheap. They usually leech a lot of liquid which I just pour off and keep browning if I’m making tacos or stroganoff. It makes a pretty good meatloaf too.
Tonkatsu!
missing the title, interesting choice
A savory, delicious pork dish that’s not too much work is katsudon. Tenderize, bread, and shallow fry a pork cutlet until the pork is nearly cooked and the breading is golden and crispy. Simmer onions in dashi, soy, and mirin, then add the pork cutlet, pour a couple of whisked eggs over it, and cover. The whole thing will kind of unify with the egg so that it will slide out together. Serve just before the egg is fully cooked atop a bowl of rice. Add chopped scallion and some pickled veg.
[https://thewoksoflife.com/katsudon/](https://thewoksoflife.com/katsudon/)
That’s still insanely high for pork. Where TF do you live