Recipe Overview
Why you’ll love it: If you struggle with dry pork chops, this recipe is a lifesaver! Smothered pork chops are pure comfort food. Thick bone-in pork chops are pan seared and topped with a delicious creamy onion and mushroom sauce.
How long it takes: 40 minutes
Equipment you’ll need: large skillet
Servings: 4
You’ll love these juicy pork chops, simmered in a rich creamy sauce with lots of sweet onions and earthy mushrooms. It’s a perfect dinner for serving to guests or for a tranquil Sunday dinner. Yet this pork chop recipe is easy enough to enjoy on weeknights, too. Doesn’t it look so homey and inviting?
What about that word smothered? It can have heavy connotations like feeling choked, overwhelmed, or suffocated. Let’s think in culinary terms: Our smothered pork chops are enveloped, surrounded, heaped, and blanketed with loads of creamy flavorful gravy, mushrooms, and onions.
Say no to dry, boring pork chops and say hello to Southern comfort. Smother your pork chops in love, or in this case, cream. Wait, maybe that’s the same thing!
About This Recipe
This recipe for smothered pork chops isn’t difficult but takes a bit of time, about forty minutes. You’ll need a large heavy skillet with a lid, a sharp knife and a cutting board.
I’ll run through the recipe here to get you started with a little extra information.The complete instructions including measurements and nutrition information are on the recipe card below.
Ingredient Notes
- Pork Chops: Choose thick cut pork chops, with the bone in for best results. They’ll be more tender and flavorful than thin, boneless pork chops.
- Butter: The butter is not only used to sauté the vegetables, but also adds great flavor. Stick with butter and do not use margarine.
- Vegetables and Seasonings: This is a fairly classic smothered pork chop recipe and uses onions, mushrooms (optional), and garlic. See our tips in the Make it Your Own section if you’d like to try different vegetables.
- Flour: Flour is used to thicken the sauce. All-purpose works best but white whole wheat or a 1:1 gluten-free flour should work as well.
- Chicken Broth: We recommend using reduced-sodium or salt free so that you can control the amount of salt in the final product.
- Heavy Cream: The addition of heavy cream makes the sauce so good! You could probably get away with half and half, but do not substitute milk. It won’t taste as good, and due to the lower fat content, will likely curdle when exposed to higher heat.
- Fresh Thyme: If you don’t have fresh, dried thyme will also work. Reduce the amount by half if using dried herbs.
How To Make Smothered Pork Chops
Prep and season. Begin by prepping the onions and mushrooms, and measuring out the other ingredients. Season the pork chops liberally with salt and pepper. Don’t go too light on the salt because it helps season and tenderize the meat.
Sear the chops. Heat the skillet to medium high heat, add the butter, and sear the pork chops, about three to four minutes per side. It’s better not to overcrowd the pan so do this step in batches. Adding pork chops all at once cools the pan down so much that it’s hard to get a nice golden brown sear. If you have a large cast iron skillet, you may find that the cast iron retains the heat so well that you have to lower the heat a bit.
Sauté the veggies. Once the pork chops are golden brown on both sides but not cooked all the way through, remove them to a plate for now. Reduce the heat and add the onions, mushrooms (if using), and garlic. You’ll want to sauté them about ten minutes, until they’re soft and translucent.
Thicken with flour. Add a few tablespoons of flour and cook, stirring constantly, for a couple of minutes. The flour will coat the onions in the pan and look pretty sticky but that’s okay, it’s there to thicken the sauce.
Add liquids. Add broth, a half cup at a time, stirring and scraping any brown bits off the bottom of the skillet. The broth and flour will form a nice sauce.
Finally, over low heat, stir in heavy cream, and nestle the pork chops into the sauce. It doesn’t matter if they overlap a bit.
Simmer. Add fresh thyme to the pan, and put the cover on. Let the pork chops simmer for ten to fifteen minutes or until they’re done (145°F).
Serve. Oh, they look so lovely smothered in that delicious creamy sauce! Bring on the mashed potatoes and green beans, we’re ready to eat!
What To Serve With Smothered Pork Chops
You’ll want to serve thse pork chops with something to soak up all that great sauce or you may notice guests surreptitiously spooning it out of the pan into their mouths. I like Instant Pot mashed potatoes or jasmine rice. Noodles or Parmesan herb spaghetti squash are wonderful, too. Couscous is a really fast and delicious option.
If you’re more of a bread person, try homemade beer bread, a quick bread that you can stir up in 10 minutes. Another great choice is no-knead Dutch oven bread, an overnight recipe.
Looking for a great side recipe to accompany the smothered pork chops? Try green beans Almondine or roasted green beans with Parmesan and basil. Roasted broccoli, Brussels sprouts, or sweet potatoes are fantastic, too. Sweet and sour German red cabbage is a classic side often served with rich pork dishes. Sautéed cabbage is a good choice, if you prefer green cabbage.
Recipe Variations
- Use boneless pork chops. They won’t be quite as tender as bone-in but are still a good alternative. Always use thick-cut pork chops for this recipe. Thin pork chops will dry out too quickly.
- Omit the mushrooms if you’re not a fungi fan. Finely diced carrots work well, too. Stir in green peas right before serving.
- Make it lactose free. Sauté the pork in olive oil and omit the cream. The sauce is delicious without it, too.
- Try different herbs. Instead of thyme, stir in tarragon, rosemary, sage, or oregano.
Refrigerate: If you have leftover pork chops, store them with any leftover sauce in the fridge for up to two days. The sauce will help keep the pork from drying out.
Freeze: Creamy sauces typically do not freeze well. Omit the cream if you plan on freezing this meal and stir it in while you are reheating the pork. If you’d like a different pork recipe that freezes well, try my pork chops with balsamic caramelized onions.
Reheat: When reheating, simmer gently in a skillet until the pork is heated through or in the microwave. If necessary, add a bit of water, cream, or broth to thin the sauce. Reheating on the stovetop will yield better results and is less likely to result in dry, tough meat.
Free Meal Plans
Interested in a weekly meal plan that includes this recipe? Take a look at my Meal Plan #29 or Meal Plan #72. You’ll find a wholesome recipe for each weekday plus a categorized grocery list. Let me do the planning for you this week! We add a new meal plan weekly.
Pork is a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals and, eaten in moderation, helps to build and maintain healthy muscle tissue (according to WebMD). I’m sure you’ll enjoy more of these tasty pork recipes.
More Pork Recipes
Smothered Pork Chops Recipe (one pan!)
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
- 2 pounds bone-in, thick-cut pork chops (4 to 6 chops, depending on how large they are)
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 medium sweet onions, sliced into ¼ -inch half-moons
- 8 oz. sliced mushrooms
- 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 4 to 6 sprigs fresh thyme
Instructions
- Season the pork chops liberally with salt and pepper.
- Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Place the pork chops in the pan and sear until a nice golden crust forms, about 3 to 4 minutes per side (cook in batches if necessary). Remove the pork chops from the pan and set aside on a plate.
- Reduce the heat to medium and add the onions, mushrooms, and garlic. Sauté until tender, caramel in color, and glossy, about 10 minutes.
- Add the flour, cook and stir for 2 minutes. The onions will become very thick as the flour and juices form a paste.
- Add ½ cup chicken broth and stir, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the pan as you go. When the sauce thickens, add another ½ cup of broth, and stir. Continue this until you’ve used all of the broth. Increase heat to medium-high if necessary during this process to maintain a simmer.
- Lower heat to medium-low, add the heavy cream, and stir to combine.
- Return the pork chops to the pan and nestle into the sauce, overlapping if necessary. Add thyme sprigs, cover the pan, and simmer on medium-low heat until the pork is cooked through about 10 to 15 minutes. The internal temperature should reach 145°F.
- Remove thyme stems before serving. Serve chops with gravy spooned over the top.
Notes
- Substitute boneless pork chops, if desired. They won’t be quite as tender as bone-in but are still a good alternative. Always use thick-cut pork chops for this recipe. Thin pork chops will dry out too quickly.
- Try different vegetables. Omit the mushrooms if you’re not a fungi fan. Finely diced carrots work well, too. Green peas can be stirred in right before serving.
- Lactose free: Sauté the pork in olive oil and omit the cream. The sauce is delicious without it, too.
- Experiment with herbs. Instead of thyme, stir in tarragon, rosemary, sage, or oregano.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did You Make This?Share a comment and rating below! I love hearing what you think!
Excellent recipe! I omitted thyme and substituted tarragon. Definitely will make it again
So glad you liked them! Thanks for leaving a review!
Can this be finished on the oven since I’m making 10 pork chops
That should work. Let me know if you give it a try!
not going to say much, just that it is delicious and I am off to eat my dinner. yumm :)
So happy you liked it! Thank you for taking the time to leave a review!
This recipe was DELICIOUS. I loved the extent of detail in the instructions, including modifying the temperature when adding the mushrooms. I used garlic olive oil instead of butter when I seared the chops, then used butter to cook the mushrooms, onions and garlic. I added sour cream in addition to the heavy cream, and it gave the sauce that extra tang of flavor it really needed. Also, be sure to add in the flour slowly so that you give all of it a chance to mix, and avoid clumping. All in all a GREAT recipe. And they’re right, this recipe NEEDS to be cooked with a thick cut chop, regardless of if it’s boneless or bone in.
So happy to hear it was a success! Thank you for sharing a photo!