Orange Thyme Sheet Pan Pork Chops (+ VIDEO!)

In the spirit of giving you fast, simple, easy dinners that are also super-delicious and budget friendly I bring you Orange Thyme Sheet Pan Pork Chops. If your pork chops often turn out dry, tough, and mostly flavorless, prepare to fall in love with pork chops again after downing these. If you haven’t already fallen head-over-heels with these now infamous Pork Chops.

If you are not familiar with sheet pan dinners, they are essentially just all the things cooked in the oven on the same pan at the same time. A lot of sheet pan recipes you’ll find on the interwebs, though, call for adding a bunch of things at various different times throughout the cooking process, which in my mind kinda negates the whole point of a sheet pan dinner.

So these Orange Thyme Sheet Pan Pork Chops are a true sheet pan dinner: everything goes on the pan at the same time, gets shoved in the oven, and 25 minutes later the pan comes out again with everything perfectly cooked. No fiddling, no opening and closing of the oven door multiple times, no adding things part way through. No having to remember when to add things either. Nope, this is a really easy way to make a pan full of delicious dinner.

Not only do these pork chops exit the oven all juicy and tender, they also come with a bang of eye-popping flavor in a cripsy Parmesan crust that you won’t be expecting. These Orange Thyme Sheet Pan Pork Chops might even become your favorite thing to do with a pile of chops.

Talking of chops, I should caution you against using any old pork chops for this sheet pan dinner. I specifically used thin-cut pork chops so that the fennel and tomatoes wouldn’t be complete mush at the end of the cooking time. If you use pork chops of a regular thickness it is likely that you will either end up with under-cooked chops (never a good idea), or entirely disintegrated vegetables. So yes, there is a really good reason why I specify thin-cut pork chops and I would encourage you to follow suit. The other reason is that thin-cut chops mean dinner is done in 25 minutes. Oh, and there’s more crust per bite, too. Three awesome reasons to go avail yourself of some today. Or at least your next shopping expedition.

Lastly, if you have always been leery of sheet pan dinners because washing a full-sized sheet pan is no bueno in some dishwashers, and it’s too big to manhandle in the sink easily, just use two half sheet pans instead! Or, if it’s just 1 or 2 of you, simply half the recipe and just use one half sheet. Boom!

Orange Thyme Sheet Pan Pork Chops

Author: Carrie Brown | Prep time: 10 mins | Cook time: 25 mins | Total time: 35 mins | Serves: 2 – 4

What You Need

• 1 large orange – zest and juice
• 1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced cross-ways
• 15 oz. / 420g grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• 1/4 cup avocado oil
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan
• 1/3 cup pork panko crumbs
• 1 TBSP fresh thyme, finely chopped
• Sea salt and ground black pepper (Get the best sea salt here and use code: carriebrown for 15% discount!)
• 1.5 lbs / 670g thin-cut pork chops (see Top Recipe Tips)
  
  

What You Do

1. Pre-heat oven to 400F.
2. Zest the orange and place zest in a shallow dish and put to the side.
3. Put the sliced fennel and tomatoes in a bowl, add the avocado oil and the juice from the orange and toss until all the veggies are thoroughly coated.
4. Spread the coated veggies evenly over the sheet pan in a single layer.
5. Add the grated Parmesan, pork panko crumbs, fresh thyme, sea salt and ground black pepper to the orange zest in the shallow dish and mix very well. Spread the Parmesan mixture evenly over the bottom of the dish.
6. Press one side of a pork chop firmly into the Parmesan mixture and the lay it crust side up on top of the veggies on the sheet pan.
7. Continue pressing the chops into the Parmesan mixture and placing them on the veggies crust side up one-by-one until you have used them all.
8. Place the sheet pan on the middle shelf or your pre-heated oven and bake for 25 minutes.
   
   

Top Recipe Tips

• You can make the crust ahead of time and store in an airtight container in the ‘fridge to make prep super-fast.
• Make sure you use thin-cut chops as regular pork chops will take a lot longer to cook and your veggies will be mush.
• If you coat both sides of the pork chops in the crust mixture the side that is laying on the veggies will be soggy. Not recommended. Plus, you’ll need more Parmesan mixture.

• Check out the Ingredients Guide for information on ingredients.
• Where Are The Macros and Nutritional Info?
  
  

Helpful Cooking and Recipe Links

• More pork recipes
• Come laugh and learn with us over at The Kitchen Podcast
• Come hang out in The Keto Kitchen Facebook Group
• For lots more great recipes check out our scrumptious cookbooks!
• Check out the categories and tags at the bottom of the post to help you find more recipes using certain ingredients or from certain categories.
  
  

Podcast Episodes and You Tube Videos

• How and Why to Measure Food
• Where Are The Macros and Nutritional Info?
  
  

Substitutions

• Don’t. Just buy the correct ingredients and you, too, shall have a fabulous outcome!
• For dairy or cheese issues, replace the Parmesan cheese with an extra 1/3 cup pork panko crumbs.