Pork Loin Roast is an easy second course to serve at a dinner party. It also doubles as a great weeknight meal that will provide leftovers for a few days. Read on to learn how to make a beautiful, easy pork loin roast without breaking the bank… or a sweat.
So, you’re throwing a dinner party for friends but don’t want to be consumed by work in the kitchen. You’ve decided to make a simple pasta that should only take a few minutes to finish. But what about a second, more protein focused, course to go with your tasty noodles?
We suggest roasting a pork loin. It’s an easy dish that fits into any Roman food menu.
Sure, you could go hog wild by butterflying and stuffing the pork to make porchetta. However, our simple roasted pork loin recipe is so much easier and, if executed properly, will satisfy your guests’ urge for protein after a couple bottles of wine.
Best of all, preparing a roast will give you a range of leftovers. You can slice it down for sandwiches, use it in fried rice or even a stir fry. This is a meat cut that’s both versatile and economical. The cost of a 2 to 3 pound pork roast is as low as $10 to $20 in America.
Preparing Pork Loin Roast Is Easy
You can prepare your pork roast in your oven with just few ingredients. We choose to dry brine our pork roast and, while this approach may yield slightly juicer meat, it’s not entirely necessary. We stud our roasts with garlic and rosemary, also not necessary but worth the extra effort.
No special equipment is required for our recipe. We typically use a sheet tray with a cooling rack, a convection oven with a built in broiler and an electronic oven probe thermometer.
You can use a conventional oven but you may want to raise the temperature by 25°F. Having either an instant read or oven probe thermometer is key. We prefer a programmable oven probe for ease of use and accuracy.
Recipe Ingredients
Our pork loin recipe requires the following simple ingredients:
How To Make Pork Loin Roast
We prefer using a foolproof method called “reverse sear” when we roast pork loin.
This method essentially involves slowly heating the meat to 10 to 15° F lower than the desired temperature and then finishing or searing the roast to create a flavorful crust on the roast’s outside. Hatched by the brilliant mind of food authority J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, the reverse sear method guarantees uniform doneness throughout the cooking process. It’s a bit like cooking Sous-Vide but without the necessity for a water bath and immersion circulator.
After we’ve properly brined our pork roast, we cook the meat at a low temp until it’s within 15° of our final finished temp of 140°. We then switch our oven setting to broil and sear the meat until it reaches its final temperature.
Read on for more details of the cooking process.
The first step is to sprinkle salt and pepper all over the roast and then place it in the refrigerator. You can then keep the plated, seasoned pork in the refrigerator for 2 to 24 hours before roasting.
Once you’re ready to cook, preheat your oven to 210° F / 100° C. Remove the pork from the refrigerator and use a paring knife to make holes all over the pork roast – about 20 should do.
You’ll then want to slice the garlic in slivers and insert the slices into the roast. There are two reasons to make sure you sliver the garlic:
- Smaller slices will allow the garlic to roast more thoroughly.
- The slivers will be small enough to fit into the holes.
Insert the rosemary in the same holes as the garlic.
Then, if there’s any fat on the roast, score the meat to insure that it renders in the oven.
Once you’ve studded and scored the meat, you can then insert an oven probe.
Use your thumb to measure how far to insert the probe into the meat. Your goal is the loin’s center.
The next step is to place the roast on top of a cooling rack on a sheet tray. Insert the meat into the oven and roast at 210°F / 100°C for about 60 to 70 minutes.
The goal is for the meat to reach a temperature of 125°F / 52°C.
Once that temperature is reached, turn on your broiler and continue cooking the roast until it reaches a temperature of 140°F / 60°C and the top of the roast has a beautiful dark brown lacquer.
Remove the roast from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Carve the roast, spoon the pan juices on top and enjoy with a side of your choice, pasta or even risotto.
Pork Loin With Garlic And Rosemary Recipe
Pork Loin Roast with Garlic and Rosemary
Roasting a Pork Loin is an easy second course for a simple Roman style dinner party with family or friends.
Ingredients
- 2.5 pounds boneless pork loin
- 4 rosemary springs
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon salt
- fresh ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- Season the raw roast with salt and fresh ground pepper.
- Place the roast in the refrigerator to dry brine for at least 2 hours. You can brine the pork up to 24 hours.
- When you're ready to cook the roast, preheat the oven to 210°F / 100°C.
- Using a paring knife, insert slices of garlic and rosemary evenly around the roast (about 8 garlic slices per side).
- If the roast has a layer of fat, score the fat in a diagonal criss-cross pattern.
- Insert an oven probe thermometer into the center of the roast.
- Cook the roast for approximately 60 to 70 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 125°F / 52°C.
- Once this temperature is reached, turn on your oven's broiler setting and cook the roast until it reaches 140°F / 60°C.
- Let the roast rest for about 10 minutes.
- Slice the roast to your desired thickness. Spoon the remaining pan juices on top of the roast and serve.
Notes
- This roast makes an excellent second course in an Italian menu. We recommend serving pasta or risotto as a first course.
- You can repurpose the leftover roast in a number of ways. Our favorite is to slice the meat cold and make sandwiches. We also like to cube the meat and add it to fried rice.
Recommended Products
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Polder Classic Combination Digital In-Oven Programmable Meat Thermometer and Timer -
Checkered Chef Baking Sheet and Rack Set - Aluminum Cookie Sheet Tray/Half Sheet Pan for Baking with Stainless Steel Oven Safe Cooling Rack -
Shun Classic 8” Chef’s Knife with VG-MAX Cutting Core and Ebony PakkaWood Handle; All-Purpose Blade for a Full Range of Cutting Tasks with Curved Blade for Easy Cuts; Cutlery Handcrafted in Japan
Hungry For More Dinner Dishes?
Create a complete meal by pairing this dish with Italian Polenta or one of our Roman pasta recipes – Amatriciana, Cacio Pepe, Carbonara or Gricia. Another option is to pair it with Pappa al Pomodoro, a tasty Tuscan tomato bread soup or even Spain’s Gazpacho.
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About The Authors
Daryl & Mindi Hirsch
Saveur Magazine’s BEST TRAVEL BLOG award winners Daryl and Mindi Hirsch share their culinary travel experiences and recipes on their website 2foodtrippers. Since launching the site in 2012, they’ve traveled to over 40 countries in their quest to bring readers a unique taste of the world.
Original Publication Date: May 8, 2021