Pork Chops & Rice Oven Dinner

How to bake pork chops with rice in the oven in one skillet, a simple satisfying meal. Baking pork chops and rice yields tender, fall-apart chops and tasty rice. This is the very first meal I ever cooked, memorable for reasons good and bad!

An Old-Fashioned One-Pot Dinner, True Comfort Food. High Protein. Weight Watchers Friendly.

~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~

A Food Disaster with Happy Memories.

Here’s to memories, the ones connecting home-cooked food and real life.

This is the story.

I was only eleven years old but on March 31, 1970, I cooked this easy one-skillet supper, just pork chops baked with rice.

And yes, I really do recall a single meal cooked exactly 39 years ago today, perhaps more than the meal cooked yesterday. Here's why.

• It was my mother’s birthday, her 40th.
• It was the first meal I ever cooked.
• It was a disaster.

But there’s more to the story, one that demonstrates how kitchen disasters can have happy endings and how some times, no matter what is served, meals are not about the food.

Here's how that day went, March 31, 1970.

Mom had a new job, she was working long hours so everybody was expected to pitch in. I was only eleven but was charged with cooking dinner.

That morning, Mom jotted down her recipe, it was for a simple, standby pork chop supper she made herself all the time, one so familiar that she left out one itsy bitsy detail: browning the pork chops.

Oops. An experienced cook might have realized. Me, I was 11 and followed her recipe to the letter.

Oops. I also baked a surprise birthday cake and frosted it with blue icing, a disaster in its own right. Worse? I forgot the cake's sugar.

Weary from her day, hungry for real food, Mom arrived home to pale pork and an inedible gooey-blue cake. Still, she was full of smiles and her characteristic hear-it-from-across-the-room laugh.

Why?

You see, five years earlier, Mom had been diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, a near-certain death sentence for a young woman just 35 years old.

Turning 40 meant she’d reached the five-year mark of breast cancer survival: she’d beaten the odds. Supper may have been a mess, but Mom – and all of us – had good reason to celebrate.

My mom was a breast cancer survivor. With any luck, so am I, see Survivor Soup (Beet, Potato & Cauliflower Soup). And I'm on a mission to ask readers, Is your mammogram overdue? Please, make that appointment!

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Everything to Know About Baking Pork Chops With Rice

Oven-baked pork chops and rice are a dinner staple in my kitchen. The oven dinner is so easy, one of those low-effort, big-payoff dinners. There are really just three steps.

• Brown the chops, don't forget to season them too!
• Throw in some rice and stock, top the chops with vegetables.
• Cover and bake, whoosh, 90 minutes later, dinner is on the table!

WHAT PAN TO USE for BAKING PORK CHOPS My mom used her trusty electric skillet. But most of us will use a regular skillet.

For a "one dish" dinner, choose a skillet that works both on the stove and in the oven. If it has a lid, all the better, although foil works well too.

I use a cast iron skillet with foil, a heavy braising pan or Dutch oven would work great too.

If your skillet isn't oven-safe, brown the chops in one skillet and even stir the rice into the pan drippings; then move the rice and chops to a casserole dish, cover and bake. Good to go!

BONE IN PORK CHOPS vs BONELESS CHOPS Bone-in pork chops work, so do boneless chops. That said, I'm partial to bone-in chops because the bones seem to add a certain savory flavor that makes pork chops taste more like, well, pork chops. That said, it's easier to cut up large, boneless chops to serve more than one person.

THICK CHOPS vs THIN CHOPS Either one works but me, I'm partial to the thick ones.

DO THE CHOPS REALLY HAVE TO BE BROWNED FIRST? It's not mandatory to brown the chops before going in the oven but I do recommend it. The pork chops just look prettier if they've been browned first. Plus, the crusty bits that form in the pan when the meat cooks (called fond) and the meat juices add flavor to the rice too.

HOW TO SEASON THE PORK CHOPS & RICE My mom used that classic combo of plain salt and pepper, so yeah, that's what I do too. But you do you with a seasoning you like, perhaps one of those spice blends for meat? perhaps a little chili powder? or some thyme? or smoked paprika? or lemon pepper?

WHAT KIND OF RICE WORKS WELL WITH PORK CHOPS? With the exception of instant rice, any kind of rice works well. My mom used simple white rice, I suspect that's all she had access to in a tiny town in the 1960s and 1970s. I usually bake pork chops with a mix of brown rice and white rice. After that, the varieties (jasmine, long-grain, etc.) really don't matter.

That said, avoid any "instant" rice that's par-cooked to cook in a few minutes, I fear it would turn to mush.

Other grains would work too, barley, kamut, even lentils and quinoa, this Oven-Baked Whole-Grain Pilaf with Quinoa, Barley, Kamut & Other Grains might well inspire.

HOW LONG TO BAKE PORK CHOPS & RICE IN THE OVEN For fork-tender pork chops, bake for 90 minutes at 350F/180C.

Alternatively, bake until an instant-read thermometer reads 145F - 160F. (Why the temperature range? Please see Should Cooked Pork Be Pink?.) The pork chops will be meatier, you'll need a knife to cut them. The rice may also need some extra time to finish.

HAVE I MISSED YOUR QUESTION? Leave a comment below, I work hard to answer specific questions quick-quick.

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QUICK SUPPER: PORK CHOPS & RICE OVEN DINNER

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 2 hours
Serves 4 (easily divided or multiplied)

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 pork chops, bone in or boneless
• Salt & pepper to taste (don't skip!)
• 1/2 (or 1) cup rice (see TIPS)
• 4 onion slices
• 4 rings of green pepper
• 4 tomato rounds
• 1-1/2 cups stock (any king, chicken, beef, vegetable)
• Generous salt & pepper

Heat oven to 350F/180C.

SEASON & BROWN THE PORK CHOPS Heat the olive oil in an oven-safe skillet until shimmery on medium high. If you like, cut off any obvious fat from the chops., Season both sides with salt and pepper. Drop the chops into the skillet (they should sizzle). Brown each side for about 3 minutes per side, without moving except for turning over, the chops will take on a little color but won't be fully cooked. Put the chops aside just for a second.

ADD THE RICE Stir the rice into the pan drippings, then arrange the chops back into the skillet in a single layer. Layer a slice of onion, a ring of green pepper and a tomato round on top of each chop.

ADD STOCK Gently pour the stock over the rice and around the meat, redistribute the rice a bit so that it's evenly distributed. If the broth is lightly seasoned, sprinkle the top generously with salt and pepper.

BAKE Cover with foil and bake for 90 minutes.

ALANNA’s TIPS If you're watching calories, know that single pork chops can range from big to enormous. Here, we split a single chop between two smaller eaters, a bigger eater eats his own. Splitting a chop isn't as pretty on the plate but worth it, consumption-wise. My mom used only 1/2 cup rice but to my taste today, that's pretty skimpy. She also used white rice but my choice is usually brown rice or a mix of brown and wild rice. Really, any rice will do except a "minute rice". Mom used an electric skillet on the counter for cooking the pork chops on the counter, I use a cast iron skillet in the oven. Ninety minutes in the oven means that the pork chops turn out fork tender. But they'll be "done" much sooner, if "done" means reaching pork's safe internal temperature of 145F/63C. You can pull the chops out early but they may be more meaty, less tender. Your choice. More information, Should Cooked Pork Be Pink?.

NUTRITION INFORMATION Per Chop, assumes 3 ounces of cooked pork per serving: 303 Calories; 10g Tot Fat; 3g Sat Fat; 62mg Cholesterol; 169mg Sodium; 22g Carb; 1g Fiber; 1g Sugar; 27g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS Old Points 7 & PointsPlus 7 & SmartPoints 8 & Freestyle 7

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More Ways to Cook Pork Chops

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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