As much as I love eating pork, I haven't always been the biggest fan of cooking it. In the past, it would constantly turn out too dry and too tough, especially whenever I would try to cook with pork loin. I knew it could be sumptuous and tender because I'd eaten it that way before, but somehow I just couldn't seem to make it a reality for myself.
Humbled by my inability to cook what should have been simple, I sought out pork loin cooking advice from experts to find out what exactly I'd been doing wrong. My problem? I'd been trying to prepare pork loin the same way I'd prepare chicken or steak, even though it has a whole different set of needs. If you too have found yourself choking down a dry dinner more times than you'd like to admit, these are the tricks that will help you make a perfect pork loin, according to professional chefs.
Pork loin is infamously difficult to prepare because it dries out faster than other meat—keep it far, far away from your slow-cooker.
Because pork loin is a lean meat, it is lower in fat and therefore more prone to drying out, Christine Hazel, recent winner of Food Network's Chopped, tells SELF. She says you'll want to avoid cooking pork loin in a slow-cooker for this very reason. "The low heat for a long length of time renders a tough outcome," she explains. Something fattier, like pork shoulder or butt, is a better option for your slow-cooker needs.
To really ensure you don't end up with a tough pork loin, you have to pay close attention to the cooking times and temperatures, says Brandon Robinson, director of operations at Michael Jordan's Steak House in Connecticut, tells SELF. When it comes to other protein sources, like chicken and beef, you have a bit more leeway. They have more fat so they're harder to overcook and dry out in the first place, and even if you do, you can easily add them to a soup or pasta where no one will notice that they're overcooked. On the other hand, pork loin can go from perfectly cooked to too tough to chew in a matter of minutes, so it's definitely not the kind of protein that you can just set and forget.
Unlike with chicken or steak, you can't tell when it's finished just by looking at it. Always use a meat thermometer to be safe.
You can't tell if the pork loin is or isn't ready to eat just from looking at it; Audrey Bruno
