Slow Cooked Sweet and Sour Honey Garlic Pork

This recipe is a combination of flavours from a sweet-and-sour sauce and a honey-garlic sauce. 

I discovered I had a huge pork tenderloin in the freezer that needed to be used up. We buy pork tenderloin because it tends to be a bit cheaper, but then we don't love it because it is usually so dry and not-so-tender. Instead of cooking the tenderloin whole, I decided to cube it and slow-cook it in a sauce in the oven so the pork would be more tender and not dry. FYI - you can also totally use a slow cooker for this recipe. I just don't have one anymore!

This turned out better than I thought it would, and we will be keeping it close at hand for our next pork tenderloin. 

Slow Cooked Sweet and Sour Honey Garlic Pork

Ingredients

2 lbs pork tenderloin, cubed

1 cup honey

1 tsp sesame oil

2/3 cup soy sauce (low sodium)

1/2 cup ketchup (sugar-free)

1 head garlic, coarsely chopped

Slurry, if needed

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1/4 water 

Garnish

sesame seeds

chopped green onions

Directions

Preheat oven to 275. 

Place cubed pork into a Dutch oven. 

Mix together honey, sesame oil, soy sauce, and ketchup and stir into pork. Lastly, add in the chopped garlic. 

Stir well. 

Place the lid on the Dutch oven and bake in a 275-degree oven for an hour. Remove from heat, increase the temperature to 350 and place back into the oven for another half an hour, until sauce is bubbling. 

Remove from heat and scoop out the pork. Place the Dutch oven on a burner over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring often, until sauce thickens. If needed, make a slurry of 1 Tbsp of cornstarch with about 1/4 cup water. Stir it into the bubbling sauce and let it thicken. 

When the sauce has thickened, add the pork back in and serve. 

You can garnish with sesame seeds or green onions, if desired. 

It goes really well served over rice or noodles. 

Add a veggie stir-fry and some gyoza, and you've got a hearty dinner!

This is a super easy recipe to throw together and smells amazing while it is in the oven! Instead of a Dutch oven, you can use a slow cooker if you have one.