I made the decision to attempt something a little different because I hadn’t yet had truly excellent BBQ pork chops and I was sick of the few standard baking techniques. This recipe for grilled pork chops with apples and pears is probably not for you if you don’t like sweet flavors.
| Prep Time: | 25 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 40 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
Ingredients
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1 cup orange juice
- ½ cup spicy brown mustard
- ⅓ cup honey
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 8 (1/2- to 1-inch thick) pork chops
- 1 lime, juiced
- ½ cup butter
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar, or to taste
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 4 large green apples – peeled, cored, and cut into eighths
- 4 Bartlett pears – peeled, cored, and cut into eighths
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together 1 cup brown sugar, soy sauce, orange juice, brown mustard, honey, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, and cumin until thoroughly combined and sugar has dissolved. Place pork chops into the bowl and spoon marinade over to cover. Let stand at room temperature for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat and lightly oil the grate. Remove chops from marinade and shake off excess. Discard remaining marinade.
- Grill chops on the preheated grill until browned, showing good grill marks, and no longer pink in the center, about 8 minutes per side. Squeeze lime juice over chops as they grill. An instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of a chop should read at least 145 degrees F (63 degrees C).
- Melt butter in a large skillet over high heat, then stir in 1 tablespoon brown sugar and cinnamon; bring mixture to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Stir in apple and pear slices and cook, stirring often, until fruit is coated with butter mixture and softened but not mushy, about 5 minutes. Transfer apple and pear slices to a grilling basket.
- Cook fruit slices on the grill until browned, about 5 minutes. Serve grilled fruit with pork chops.
- I had never paid attention to what type of pork chops I used. I always just grabbed and baked — but apparently, it is all in the cut of the meat!
- To reduce the sweetness in this recipe, I would suggest squeezing a bit of lime juice over the meat.
- Nutrition data for this recipe includes the full amount of marinade ingredients. The actual amount consumed will vary.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 631 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 68 g |
| Cholesterol | 137 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 6 g |
| Protein | 45 g |
| Saturated Fat | 11 g |
| Sodium | 2199 mg |
| Sugars | 54 g |
| Fat | 22 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
YUMMYY…Super easy and DEELISH !!
This is delicious! I thickened up some of the marinade for a great sauce. Also, I didn’t have pears but I did have pineapple. So good!
This was a fabulous recipe! My whole family really enjoyed and I will be making again
Quite good, but wayyyy too much marinade. Even half the quantities would be plenty enough. Will probably make it again.
yes! Fruit and pork was wonderful.
I didn’t have any cinnamon so I used Allspice instead. I will definitely be making this one again. My hubby is a picky eater and loved this recipe. Thanks for sharing.
Really delicious. I used a pork tenderloin. Not sure about grilling the fruit or drizzling the lime juice. I did and I’m not sure that added anything. Fruit was good right out of the sauté pan. Everyone came back for seconds and extra topping.
This is outstanding. I should point out that this recipe scales up or down very easily. I made it for two, instead of eight. And, although this was intended for an outdoor grill, you could use a George Foreman or OptiGrill, which is what I did. Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly. The marinade adds a lot to the pork chops, and the apple-pear topping (which I made in a skillet) is an added bonus.
I followed the recipe exactly and no one was particularly excited. They said the chops were boring and bland. I boiled the marinade and made a sauce that improved it, but not much. Interestingly, the best part of the meal was a roasted sweet potato with the sauce and apple/pear mixture on top. I would not make it again.
We cooked this on the stove and it was still awesome! The kids really enjoyed it which is always a win in my book.
Good + recipe. Made as written, except for 2 people, so cut the ingredients appropriately. Also cut back just a pinch on the sugar (probably 3 1/2 T), and honey (half of what 1/4 of the recipe called for). With those changes, we thought it was great. (Although I marinated it for about 5 hours in the ‘frig, just because that worked for our activities that day.). With these changes, we didn’t think anything was too sweet. Served with coriander roasted carrots and arugula, kale and pear salad – very nice Sunday dinner. (Although I would tweek the dressing for the salad, but that is not reflected in my rating.). I would suggest you try this!
Made it for dinner last night, my boyfriend said this was the second best dinner I’ve made (second to filet mignon I purchased at a butcher and cooked in butter). Next time I will cut marinade in half as it was too much. Very tasty and amazing flavor profile!
I made this in a frying pan, what an awesome recipe!
Yummy! Used pork sirloin roast because its what I had. Made 1/2 recipe marinade and still had leftover sauce. I thought it was a little sweet so I would use a little less brown sugar next time. With my roast size I needed only 1 large apple and 2 smaller pears pealed and sliced. Roast was placed in 9×9 pan with fruit arranged around it & topped with enough marinade to almost cover fruit. Let sit 45 minutes. Cooked at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and then lowered temp to 350 and cooked until pork reached 145 degrees with meat thermometer -about 20 min or more depending on roast size.
Apples are in season and I LOVE pork with apples so I thought this recipe would be great to try! The flavor of the marinade was really good and I liked the hint of lime. I forgot to buy pears so we only used apples for the topping and we didn’t grill them at the end. It still turned out just fine. Great fall recipe when its still nice enough out to BBQ! Thanks for sharing the recipe Dianne!
I read this and thought, what a waste to throw away all that rich marinade.. so instead, I toss the fruit and chops in a 2 qt. baking dish and bake it.. then I use the marinade over rice with the dish! You can eliminate the extra brown sugar and butter for the fruit which also saves a few calories. Its delicious this way!
Really tasty. I’ve been using the marinade as a base for a lot of pork dishes. Works especially well for stir fry.
Followed the recipe exactly and loved the flavor! I did set some of the marinade to the side to reduce down for a dipping sauce. It was good just a little on the salty side. I will make sure to use low sodium soy sauce next time. Served it with steamed broccoli and baked potatoes.
I love this. I am not a very good cook, but this made me look more like one. This was not had to fix and with one or two errors my husband and I turned out a very fine dinner. Thanks for the receipe.
GREAT! The fruit was as good as the meat. Didn’t have OJ, so used lemon juice. Didn’t have limes, so just left that off. Next time will try it exactly & boil the marinade down to pour over the chops, like someone else suggested. A ‘different’ pork chop recipe.
Marinated 5 hrs.