Pork Chops with Pear and Celery Slaw
with butternut squash soup
Smarts: Lemon juice enhances the flavors of fruit and celery, making the slaw even more vibrant.
Ingredients
- Celery - 3 ribs, julienned
- Chives - 1 Tbsp, chopped
- Pork chops, bone-in or out - 4
- Pears, Asian - 1, julienned
- Lemon juice - 2 Tbsp
- Maple syrup - 1 Tbsp
- Oil, cooking - 1 Tbsp
- Onions, medium - 1, chopped
- Butternut squash cubes - 2 lbs
- Apples - 1, peeled and cubed
- Butter - 2 Tbsp
- Brown sugar - 1 tsp
- Cumin - 1/2 tsp
- Nutmeg (opt) - 1/4 tsp
- Stock, any type - 4 cups
- Sour cream - 1/4 cup (sub plain or Greek yogurt)
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Onions / Squash - Prep as directed. Store separately. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Celery / Chives - Prep as directed. Store separately. (Can be done up to 3 days ahead)
- Pork chops - Season with some salt and pepper and tenderize with a fork. (Can be done 1 day ahead)
- Pears / Apples - Prep as directed. Store separately.
- Make slaw - Toss celery, pears, and chives with lemon juice, maple syrup, and a pinch of salt.
Unlock this meal along with hundreds of smart meal plans and never stress about "What's for dinner?" again
Try for freeLearn More
Make
- Heat a Dutch oven or stock pot with butter over medium heat.
- When butter melts add onions and saute until onions are soft, 3 to 4 minutes. Add brown sugar, cumin, and nutmeg and stir for 1 minute more.
- Stir in squash and apples and saute to coat in spices, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Pour stock over squash and apples and bring to a simmer.
- Cover and simmer soup until squash is tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
- After soup has been simmering for ~10 minutes, heat a skillet with oil over medium-high heat. Add pork chops and sear on each side for ~3 minutes. For thin pork chops, this should be enough heat to cook them through. If you’re using thicker pork chops, lower heat and cover with a piece of foil until pork reaches 145F / 63C degrees.
- Cover pork and let rest for 5 minutes.
- While pork rests, transfer soup to a blender (or use an immersion blender) and blend until smooth. (If soup is too thick, you can add some more stock or some water to thin it.) Taste and season with some salt and pepper.
- Reserve 1 cup / 237 mL of the soup (for 4 servings; adjust if customizing) for Tuesday.
- Slice pork and serve with slaw on top. Enjoy with soup on the side. Top soup with a spoonful of sour cream.
Nutrition Facts
Reviews
Ratings
52 reviews
Made a few changes with the soup - subbed half the stock for reduced fat canned coconut milk, bought pre-cubed butternut squash and used more like 2.5lbs, added 1/2 tsp of garam masala and 1/2 tsp of chili powder. This would have been super bland (for my taste) otherwise. We are a dairy-free house, so not sure if the sour cream would have helped with that. I think the salad would have been great but I wanted crusty bread, so that happened.
0 HelpfulI really enjoyed the soup, but not the pork or the slaw. I found those to be pretty bland.
0 HelpfulSalad and soup was delicious! We added in some cracked pepper on top of the soup for an extra touch.
0 HelpfulLoved it! Made the pork chops straight from the recipe (tenderized and generously seasoned with salt and pepper), turned out super moist and tasty! As for the soup, I roasted the butternut squash in the oven for 40 minutes at 400'F with butter, sea salt, pepper, and nutmeg (face up for the last 15 minutes), and used that instead of raw cubes. I also used some good quality chicken broth along with everything else the recipes called for, and I didn't even need to add any seasoning at the end, it was perfect! (also, used greek yogurt instead of sour cream, boyfriend liked that much better) Def. 5 stars, and I'm very excited for the mac n cheese tomorrow :-)
0 HelpfulThe slaw is great, the pork chops were great. I added salt and pepper to them. The soup made WAY too much and was a little bland.
0 Helpful