Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy

I bought a whole pork loin on sale recently and couldn’t resist using part of it to make Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy using the recipe from the “Recipe BY Me” blog.  I changed the cooking method a lot a shown in the recipe below.

But before we get into the meal let’s discuss the liberties being taken by restaurants with the words pork tenderloin.  This is a pork tenderloin along side a piece of pork loin and as you can see, the 1½ -2 inch diameter tenderloin is much smaller than the 4-5 inch diameter pork loin. 

So, I’m beyond curious how someone can cut across the tenderloin and pound it to get it big enough for this sandwich.

The answer is that they cannot but it’s easily done with the much larger pork loin so the restaurants are obviously not selling pork tenderloin sandwiches but rather are taking the liberty of leaving out the space between the r and L in their Pork Tender Loin sandwich to get the Pork Tenderloin sandwich.  Our local Hot Rods 50’s Diner does this.  So that’s enough from the food speech police on this subject for now.

And now back to the meal.  Bev brought some mushrooms home om the market and I decided to add some to the bacon gravy so I adjusted the recipe to reflect this.

Country Fried Pork Loin With Bacon Gravy - Adapted from Recipe By Me

Ingredients:

Pork Chops

4 pork chops – Larry used 1” boneless loin Jaccarded to about ¾“ thickness

8 oz buttermilk

4½ oz all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp onion powder

2 oz vegetable oil

Bacon Gravy

4 slices bacon, chopped

6 large mushrooms, halved and sliced

2 tbsp. unsalted butter

½ oz all-purpose flour

12 oz. whole milk

½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

Directions:

Place pork chops in a shallow dish and pour over the buttermilk. Allow to marinate for 30 minutes at room temperature (I marinated them in a plastic bag).

In a 12” skillet, cook chopped bacon over medium heat until crisp. Transfer bacon to a bowl, reserving rendered fat in the pan.

Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook until most moisture is released.  Remove to the bowl with the bacon.

While mushrooms are cooking, in a shallow dish, combine the flour, salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and onion powder.

Remove pork chops from the buttermilk, dredge each in the seasoned flour, shaking off excess. Fry in the same skillet to an internal temp of 138F.

Remove to a plate and keep warm in a 140F oven.

Add butter (as needed for 2 tbsp total fat) to the bacon fat in the skillet and allow to melt. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add a little milk to deglaze the pan, scrapping up the brown bits, then gradually whisk in the remaining milk until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer for several minutes until thickened.

Then stir in crispy bacon and mushrooms and cook a couple of minutes to reheat them.

Ladle warm bacon gravy over fried pork chops before serving.

We planned to serve the pork with boiled plate mashed potatoes and broccoli salad but decided the meat would be enough.

Verdict:

Doing it as a one pan meal in the order I used did not work out as the pork chops stuck to the stuff in the pan from cooking the bacon and mushrooms.  It was very good and as you can imagine the gravy was delicious with all of the sucs in the pan – the mushrooms were a good addition to the gravy.  I will make it again and still as a one pan meal but I would cook the chops first in the clean pan and keep them warm in the oven.  Then I would cook the bacon and mushrooms in the same pan, remove them and make the sauce then add back the bacon and mushrooms – the gravy should still have those delicious sucs from cooking the bacon and mushrooms.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/12/25 event date