Juicy honey garlic pork chops are cooked in a honey garlic sauce on the stove in one pan with soy sauce, Better Than Bouillon, and hot sauce for some extra flavor. It’s simple, but an incredibly flavorful dinner.

These pork chops are perfect to make on those busy nights if you’re short on time or need something easy for a weeknight. They cook all in one pan in just 30 minutes from start to finish. The honey and garlic blend with the pork chops to create the best sauce without turning on the oven.

What kind of pork chops to use

For these honey garlic pork chops I tend to use bone-in pork chops to get the most flavor. The bone actually slows down the heat transfer to the center of the meat and it makes it harder to overcook them. Every time I cook them they get that tender juicy bite. They also have better fat marbling so that holds a lot of flavor too.

I usually buy them 1 inch thick so they don’t overcook especially when they need to cook in the sauce. If you’re using boneless pork chops, I would stay around 1 inch thick and start checking the temperature a little bit earlier because they do cook faster and have a tendency to overcook and become tough.

If you’re looking for the juiciest pork chop, check your grocery store for the label of a bone-in pork loin rib chop. It’s my favorite.

How to make honey garlic pork chops on the stove top

Whenever using pork chops in any recipe, pat them dry using a paper towel. A dry surface browns better and that golden crust is where a lot of the flavor in the pork chops comes from. That’s really important with these honey glazed pork chops so there’s extra flavor to the actual pork chops.

Before putting the pork chops in the pan, season them with salt and pepper so the salt really soaks into the pork chops. This makes that whole pork chop have flavor instead of just adding the sauce on top of it.

Wait for the butter to start foaming to know the pan is hot enough to cook the pork chops. It’ll help get that crisp exterior and build flavor. Add in the pork chops and cook them on both sides until they reach 135°F. I used to pull the pork chops when they hit 145°F but they tasted drier and sometimes even turned tough. Now I pull them at 135°F. They get that extra 10°F when resting and cooking in the honey garlic sauce at the end. It hasn’t failed me yet.

For 1-inch bone-in pork chops, searing them will take about 4 to 5 minutes per side. If they’re thicker add a minute or two per side. Boneless are quicker because of what I mentioned earlier and they only need 3 to 4 minutes per side. 

If you crowd the pan, they’ll take even longer and do more steaming than cooking. Make sure they’re not touching. If they do touch, just cook them in two batches. It’s not a big deal and they can all cook together in the pan at the end without any issues.

When I make the sauce I really get in and scrape the brown bits in the pan. It brings so much flavor from cooking the pork chops earlier in the same pan. And, do not skimp on that garlic. Six cloves can sound intimidating but this is a honey garlic sauce. If garlic is in the name, it needs to shine.

The Better Than Bouillon roasted chicken base really gives extra flavor to the sauce too. Chicken broth gives a little bit of flavor, but the chicken base takes it over the top. The sauce is what makes the recipe, so making it as flavorful as possible is the way to really enjoy it.

Now, the Better Than Bouillon already has salt in it, so if low-sodium soy sauce isn’t an option, use regular soy sauce and don’t add any extra salt at the end before tasting. I prefer to use low-sodium soy salt in most of my cooking so I can control the saltiness in all of my recipes. I can always add in salt, but it’s much tougher to remove the salt without compromising the taste.

I usually let the sauce cook for 3 to 5 minutes before adding back in the pork chops, then let it finish reducing with the pork chops in there. It gives the pork chop so much flavor and lets it start to attach to the pork chop instead of just being a sauce that’s on top of it.

If you’re a spicy lover, add some extra dashes of Frank’s Red Hot to kick it up. My kids prefer milder so I just add it in after if I want any more. Even if you don’t like spice, add in a little bit and it just lifts the sauce up. Start with less, then add more at the end after tasting if you think it needs more.

The consistency of the sauce will be looser than my honey garlic dipping sauce after basting them on the pork chops several times. If you like a thicker sauce, add a cornstarch slurry (1 tbsp. cornstarch and 1 tbsp. water mixed together) to the pan before adding the pork chops back. If you already added the pork chops back, just remove them, mix the cornstarch slurry, then add the pork chops back. It’s easier to stir that way.

The pork’s done when it reaches 145°F after resting for 3 minutes so use a thermometer to make sure they’re cooked. Since they’re bone-in pork chops, take that temperature close to the bone. If you’re using boneless pork chops, just right in the center. 

I usually serve something like garlic green beans with the pork chops because like I said before, if you’re using garlic, you might as well really lean into it! They taste really good with the sauce too. Air fryer rice is another side I go toward to because it soaks up that sauce from the pan that’s left over and makes it so flavorful. I mean just combine all three and it’s sort of like a stir fry.

More pork chop recipes

I may be obsessed with pork chops with the amount of them I have on my site. You can look through my pork chop recipes section or select one of the pork chop recipes below.

• Brown sugar pork chops
• Pork chop brine
• Honey garlic air fryer pork chops
• Oven baked bone-in pork chops