Easy Skillet Pork Chops with BBQ Sauce

These Easy Skillet Pork Chops are total comfort food. Sizzling BBQ sauce and a quick preparation make for a delicious and quick weeknight dinner.

As soon as I could read, I started reading my mom’s cookbooks. For fun. I started cooking at about age ten, and doing the meal planning and grocery shopping at about age sixteen. Cooking has always been a passion of mine.

One of the recipes I discovered back in the days was this recipe for easy skillet pork chops. It is super easy, and you can adapt it in a multitude of ways, depending on what kind of sauce you use. I have always used barbecue sauce, but I imagine that salsa, marinara sauce, or your other favorite basting sauce would be equally good.

Just make sure you coordinate the type of liquid you use to match the sauce. I wouldn’t recommend pineapple juice with marinara sauce.

I usually use barbecue sauce with pineapple juice. I love how those flavors compliment each other. You can serve the finished chops on rice or mashed potatoes or even buttered noodles. A side of potato salad would not go amiss.

It’s also delicious served paleo style with spaghetti squash. Just be sure to use a naturally sweetened BBQ sauce, like this Naturally Sweetened Apricot BBQ Sauce.

How I make this cheap:

Here are some of the strategies I use to make this recipe more economical:

Meal plan around what’s on sale. Don’t decide to make this when pork chops are $5/pound (when you have none in the freezer). Make this the week pork chops are on special or …
Stock up on ingredients when they are on sale. Buy pork chops at a great price and put a few packages in the freezer so that you can make this whenever you want!
Make your own sauces. It’s much cheaper to make your own sauces. You get to control the quality of ingredients, too.

Tools I use to make this recipe easy:

This is a pretty straight-forward dish. You don’t need any fancy equipment. However, having some good basic kitchen tools can really make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable. Over time, I’ve honed my collection so that they are perfect for my needs. Here are the tools that I like to use in this recipe.

plastic cutting boards – I have blue boards for veggies and white boards for meat.
Ergo Chef chef’s knife – I’ve had my set for several years and they work well.
large skillet with lid – I have two of these since I love this model so much.
cooking tongs – I use these all the time for cooking in a skillet.

Easy Skillet Pork Chops

These Easy Skillet Pork Chops are total comfort food. Sizzling BBQ sauce and a quick preparation make for a delicious and quick weeknight dinner.

Preparation Time:5 minutes
Cook time:25 minutes
Total time:30 minutes
4 to 6 servings
Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 to 6 pork chops
1 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 cup barbecue sauce, homemade or bottled
1/2 cup water, chicken broth, pineapple, or orange juice

Instructions:

In a large skillet heat the oil until shimmering. Season the pork chops with salt and pepper. Brown the chops, turning once. Remove from the skillet to a plate.
Saute the onion and garlic in the remaining drippings until the onion goes clear.
Add the barbecue sauce, liquid, salt, and pepper.
Return the chops and any juices to the pan and cover and simmer until the chops are tender, turning once. This may be 10 minutes for thin chops, or up to 20 or 30 minutes for thicker pork chops. Serve immediately.

Are you looking for more good cheap eats?

Updated March 18, 2017.

Comments

Jen H says:
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Tried this tonight. Family really enjoyed it! Thanks for a great dinner idea!
Charity L. says:
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Hmmm…think this could be made with apricot marmalade instead of the BBQ sauce? I think that would still pair well with the orange or pineapple juice (I like sweet sauces, obviously). Thoughts?
- Jessica says:
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  @Charity L., yes, if you like sweet sauces, I think that would work very well.
Monique Lawrence says:
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Hi Jessica, I am new to your website. I made this recipe last night for dinner. It was absolutely delicious. Even my 9yo DD who is a very picky eater ate it all up.
Thank you for all that you do.
Monique
- Jessica Fisher says:
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  Yay! So glad to hear it!