Marinating Pork Chops For Grilling

Grilling pork chops can sometime lead to dry and uninspiring meat if not cooked properly. However, if you marinade your chops before grilling then they remain more succulent and flavoursome due to the presence of additional moisture within the meat which is achieved through marinading.

Marinades can take numerous forms and can be left for long periods to fully infuse the meat with all the spices, liquids and seasonings. That said, some marinade recipes for meats can be left for only short periods before cooking (half an hour to an hour for example) and the below pork marinade is just one of these recipes which you can make and marinade in a relatively short period.

Perfect for pork chops this recipe will bring a zing to your loin steaks and is quick and easy to make using ingredients which you will probably find in your cupboards.

Pork Chops Grilling Marinade

2 x fl oz of Soy Sauce

2 x Tablespoons of dark brown sugar (demerara is good)

1 x bulb of chopped garlic

1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger

Simply mix all the ingredients into a secure plastic bag and shake to mix. Place your pork chops into the marinade and tie the bag and then massage the juices into the meat ensuring that all parts of the chop are covered. Leave for half an hour to an hour on your kitchen worktop. This will bring the chops up to room temperature whilst marinading which helps the absorption of the flavours and in addition, will help cooking your pork chops evenly under the grill. Please refer to our Grill Time For Pork Chops for details on how to best grill your chops.

Grill Time For Pork Chops

Grilling pork chops is a perfect way to cook these great pork cuts however before we look at the best method to grill your pork we need to first look at the thickness and characteristics of your meat. Pork chops come either with the bone removed (boneless) or the traditional cut, bone in pork chops. Cooking either of these will vary given the presence of bone and importantly the thickness of the steak will mean your cooking time varies.

One of the most common mistakes in cooking pork chops is cooking them to long. They become dry and hard and lack any succulence given all the moisture from the meat has been removed through over cooking. Therefore, the first tip to mention is that the thickness of your chops is the key to ensuring at what temperature you cook your meat.

Thin pork chops (around half an inch thick) will require a higher heat setting whereas a thicker pork chop (an inch or more) will require a medium grill setting. Given a thicker pork chop will need longer to cook through it is this reason why anything over an inch thick will require longer more sustained cooking over a medium grill. Thick chops can be cooked quickly over a heat heat. Below are the grill times for pork chops with the bone in relating to the two most common thicknesses.

Grilling Thin Pork Chops Bone in

1. Set your grill to the highest grill setting and wait for it to reach optimum temperature.

2. Carefully place the chops on the grill rack/pan and give them 2 minutes under the grill

3. After 2 minutes, rotate the chops 90 degrees (do not turn, just rotate this gives great ‘grill lines’) and leave for a further 1 minute.

4. Carefully turn over your pork chops and give a further 1 minute before again turning 90 degrees for 1 further minute.

Cooking time for a thin (half an inch) pork chop is around 5 minutes

Grilling Thick Pork Chops Bone in

1. Set the grill to the highest setting and allow to heat up.

2. Carefully place the pork chops onto the grill rack and give them 1 minute at this high heat.

3. After the first minute turn over the chops and give another 1 minute.

4. Rotate the chops (90 degrees as before) and turn down the grill to a medium setting and cook for 3 minutes.

5. Turn over the chops whilst also rotating them and cook for a further 4 minutes.

Cooking time for a thicker (over an inch) pork chop will be around 9 minutes in total.

The final, and in my mind the most significant part of successfully grilling great pork chops, is to allow the chops to ‘rest’ after cooking. The meat has been through quite an ordeal and needs time to recover and reabsorb it’s juices. Simply take from the grill and place onto a plate and loosely cover with tin foil. Leave for 4-5 minutes by which time the juices will have redistributed themselves back into the meat leaving you with soft, succulent and great tasting pork chops!