Brine for Pork Chops

This brine for pork chops recipe makes a grilled pork chop even better and more tender. After grilling, top with fresh herb butter for a delicious dinner.

Grilling season has commenced at our house.  Actually, it never ends.  But this time of year we don’t have to stand under an umbrella while we’re grilling!

A few years ago we had a life changing experience at a local Portland restaurant with a pork chop.  This pork chop was amazing.  My husband still talks about it two years later.  I decided to see if I could recreate something similar at home. 

What kind of Pork Chop Should I Use?

I used a center cut pork chop. It is also called a New York Pork Chop.  It will range between 1 1/2 and 2″ thick. You can find them boneless and with bone in, I prefer the boneless.

What is Pork Brine?

Brining is a process where meat is soaked before cooking.  Brining makes cooked meat moister by hydrating the cells of its muscle tissue before cooking.  The pork brine I use is a combination of water, honey, brown sugar, garlic, peppercorns and salt.

How Long Should Meat Brine?

The general rule for pork shops is to brine them from 8-12 hours but for these pork chops I brined them for about 24 hours which is how long the restaurant brined their pork chops that I was trying to duplicate. If you are using a thinner pork chop you will not want to brine this long or your pork chop will taste like salt.

The results were well worth the wait. Be sure your meat is totally immersed in the brine.  Rotate the bag a few times during the brining process if it’s not totally covered.

Before grilling them I rinsed the pork chops off to remove any salt or peppercorns.

How To Grill Pork Chops

Our grill allows you to set a temperature so I cooked mine at 350 degrees.  It took about 10-12 minutes per side.  Be sure and use a meat thermometer to make sure your cook your pork to the right temperature.  Cutting into the meat while it is cooking to check for doneness  lets all those yummy juices out which then causes the meat to dry out so a meat thermometer works much better

Cooking Temperature of Pork

You can achieve chop perfection when you cook your pork chops like a steak and use a digital thermometer to ensure the proper range of doneness. The National Pork Board recommends that you cook chops to an internal temperature to 145°F (medium rare), followed by a three-minute rest.

After the pork chops were done cooking I topped them with some fresh herbed butter for even more amazing flavor.

Herbed Butter

Allow the butter to melt over the top of your grilled pork chops. The herbed butter is made with garlic, parsley, butter and a little lemon juice. I have a recipe for herb compound butter here.

The pork chop was delicious.  The brining made it so moist and tender and the herbed butter just added to the flavor goodness.