How To Make Tender and Juicy Instant Pot Pork Chops

If you’ve been on the hunt for a pork chop that is fork-tender, incredibly juicy, and full of flavor, stop right here. These onion gravy-smothered Instant Pot pork chops are everything you’ve dreamed of in a pork chop and more.

Using the one-pot power of an Instant Pot means these pork chops can be quickly braised in a rich onion gravy that makes for almost fall-apart tender pork chops that are anything but dry or flavorless. These smothered pork chops are dinner and a delicious sauce in one.

A universal truth of cooking any type of meat in the electric pressure cooker is that you can’t get crispy but you can get saucy. No searing or broiling after cooking in the electric pressure cooker will give your pork chops the crisp exterior of oven or stovetop pork chops, but it does create the opportunity for flavorful sauce.

Smothered pork chops are most often associated with Southern cuisine and can come with mushrooms, onions, or even thick black pepper gravy depending on the recipe. This gravy is full of caramelized onions and garlic, and balanced with a swoop of sour cream just before serving.

Here’s the win of building a gravy for your pork chops in the same pot that you’re cooking the chops in: the cooking liquid becomes the gravy. The pork chops are coated in flour before browning in the Instant Pot, and this flour will thicken the broth and onions as the pork chops cook.

• Use thick, boneless loin chops. You could pretty much use any pork chops for this recipe, but boneless loin chops give you two advantages: The first is there’s no bone to work around, and the second is that loin chops are generally more tender and quick-cooking than other pork chops.
• Brown the chops first. Just because we can’t have crispy pork chops in the Instant Pot doesn’t mean that we can’t get some caramelized flavors from them. Use the pot’s sauté setting to melt some butter and brown the chops two at a time.
• Use the sauté function to brown the onions. While the pork chops rest, quickly brown some onions in the Instant Pot with the sauté function. You can technically caramelize onions under pressure, but that technique requires more time than we want to spend on a quick weeknight dinner.
• Smother the chops for cooking. After the onions are golden, add some broth to the cooker and return the pork chops to the Instant Pot. Make sure the pork chops are covered before sealing the cooker and setting it to 10 minutes of high pressure.
• Finish the gravy with sour cream. After releasing the pressure from the Instant Pot (10 minutes of natural release before quick releasing), the gravy will still be quite hot and thin. Adding just a few tablespoons of sour cream to the gravy will cool it, which helps with thickening and also balances the very rich, meaty flavor of the onion gravy.

I’d love to serve these pork chops on a platter smothered with their golden onion gravy, but I have a 6-year-old who is in an onion-hating season, so she gets a plain chop while the rest of use get individual pork chops with plenty of gravy. But that’s the real gift of these chops — even if you choose to skip the onion gravy on a serving, the chops will still be fork-tender and oh-so juicy.