Pork Chops with Cherry Port Reduction (Recipe)

Lucky for you, I’m still dear friends with my best friend from 5th grade.

And lucky for all of us, sometime after 5th grade, she married a really nice man and all around lovely human being. Who also happens to be an excellent chef. 👨‍🍳

Some 20 years ago now, I first tasted Pete’s Cherry Port Reduction; the secrets of which I’m sharing with you today.

And you absolutely must have this recipe because it goes perfectly with One Straw pork chops. I mean, you already know our ethically raised pork chops are delicious on their own, but with a drizzle of this sauce?

oh. my. goodness. Seriously 💯💥🚨

This recipe, the memories of its deliciousness, have haunted my hungry moments for two decades. Knowing my friend’s husband trained in a French kitchen (not to mention owned his own restaurant) I figured the only way I was going to taste it again was to show up at his door - ingredients in hand - and beg pitifully.

But thankfully, I got smart and picked up the phone – and Pete told me a secret. This silky, irresistible, tantalizing sauce is actually soooo easy to make. It only tastes like years of Cordon Bleu training went into perfecting your sauce-making technique.

In reality, this divine 4-ingredient sauce comes together with surprisingly little fuss while your pork chops are cooking. 🍒 🍷 🍯 🧈

Pork Chops with Cherry Port Reduction are so very tasty. The other night, I actually overheard Farmer Martin bragging to a friend that I’d made him this dish for dinner. While I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, my heart swelled with pride - and just a tinge of humor. Because it sounds seriously elegant, tastes massively delicious, and is so ridiculously easy I often make it on a weeknight - just because I adore my husband (and love licking the spoon 😂).

Chef Pete says the magic of this recipe is how the sweet of the sauce combines with the salt of the pork chops.

Move over, pork chops and applesauce. Pork Chops with Cherry Port Reduction are here.

Cooking the Pork Chops

Serve this divine sauce over pork chops cooked by any method you prefer (oven, pan or grill). 

Just make sure you salt them generously so you get that lovely sweet-salt blend of flavor. (And remember: only cook pork chops to 145-150 degrees internal temp so they don't get dry. Grandma's method of cooking them to shoe leather is waaaayyy out of style.)

If you don't have a favorite pork chop cooking method, try my Baked Pork Chops recipe. Season them only with salt (not the optional dry rub in the recipe). The timing works great with these two recipes. Get everything prepared, then turn the burner on under the sauce after you put the chops in the preheated oven. The chops and the sauce will be ready about the same time. 

Note about the Cherries 

This recipe calls for sweet cherries canned in syrup. See the photo below for my go-to cherries, which you can get at the PT Co-op. They are lightly sweet to start, and the sweetness intensifies as the sauce reduces.

Cherries canned in plain water are available, but you'd have to add more honey to achieve the appropriate sweetness to contrast with the salty pork chops. Feel free to experiment and let me know how it goes. 

Do not use the canned cherry pie filling/cheesecake topping which is very thick and a completely different product. 

Cherry Port Reduction

Ingredients

13.5 oz (1 ½ C) canned whole cherries in syrup (NOT plain canned cherries in water and NOT the thick pie filling/cheesecake topping)

½ C port wine

1 tsp honey

2 tsp butter

Directions

Pour the jar of cherries (juice/syrup included) into a shallow saucepan. Remove any stems.

Stir in the port wine and honey.

Place saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer.

Break up the cherries with a wooden spoon as the sauce heats up.

Simmer briskly, stirring occasionally, until liquid reduces: about 10-15 minutes.

The liquid will reduce until there’s about ¼ of the liquid that you started with. Attend the saucepan, as this happens rapidly towards the end.

You’ll know it’s getting close to done by watching the sauce. First it starts to look foamy. Then the bubbles suddenly get bigger and the sauce sticks to a spoon.

When you’ve reached these visual milestones of reduced liquid, big bubbles, and a sauce that sticks to the spoon, remove the pan from the heat.

Stir in the 2 tsp butter. This makes the sauce lovely and glossy.

**(Remove the saucepan from the heat before adding the butter, or the sauce can curdle/separate.)

Serve drizzled over cooked pork chops seasoned generously with salt.

* Store leftover sauce in a sealed container in the refrigerator. It goes beautifully with leftover pork chops or pretty much any other leftover protein in your fridge. Or just eat it with a spoon!

Note: These sweet cherries are what I use.

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