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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Orange-Glazed Pork Loin


(This recipe was first posted in conjunction with the Meijer Ad Week 2/26/12 - 3/3/12)

This easy entree can be cooked either in the crockpot or the oven.  Pork loin is usually a huge piece of meat, so this feeds a crowd! 

Ingredients:
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp pepper
1 center cut boneless half pork loin
Glaze:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 cup orange juice
1/3 cup water
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard

Directions:
Combine salt, garlic powder, thyme, ginger, and pepper.  Rub over entire roast.  Place roast in crockpot or greased roasting pan. 
Glaze:  Combine brown sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan.  Stir in remaining glaze ingredients.  (If you are going to cook the meat in the crockpot, substitute 1/3 cup additional orange juice for the water).  Bring to a boil.  Cook and stir for 2 minutes.
If baking pork loin in oven:  Bake, covered, 1 hour at 325 degrees.  Uncover, brush some of the glaze on roast, re-cover, and bake 1 3/4 more hours (or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees), uncovering and brushing with glaze approximately every 1/2 hour.  Let stand 10 minutes, then slice and serve with remaining glaze (re-warm in microwave or saucepan if desired).
If cooking pork loin in crockpot:  Pour prepared glaze over rubbed pork loin.  Turn crockpot on low and cook 8-10 hours or until meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.  During cooking process, uncover and baste with juice/glaze approximately every 3 hours. Remove from crockpot.  Cover and let stand 10 minutes.  Slice, then serve with juices/glaze from crockpot.
Serve with rice or potatoes and a vegetable (such as Oven-Roasted Asparagus).


Options and Tips
  • If a half pork loin is an overwhelming amount of food for your family, just cut it in half and freeze half of it before cooking/baking.
  • If you decide to bake only half of the half pork loin, total oven time should be only 2 1/4 hours  instead of 2 3/4 hours.
  • I have used pineapple juice in place of orange juice with equally yummy results.
  • Make Pork BBQ with the leftovers!

This recipe in its original form can be found on page 119 of Taste of Home's "Contest Winning Annual Recipes 2005" cookbook. I made a few alterations to the instructions.

4 comments:

  1. This pork loin was delicous. I put it in the crockpot at midnight Sat. night and we ate shortly after noon Sunday. Sunday night we had the pork on buns and on Monday I made the barbequed pulled pork on buns. Also delicious. Thank you, very, very good. Ann Daling

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  2. Delicious! My family loved it!

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  3. Which way have you found best to cook? Crock pot or in oven? Or both really tender? Thanks...

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    1. I tend to use my crockpot more because I know there's a guaranteed moist and tender result even if I leave it in for an extra hour. Oven-cooking is just a little trickier (at least for me!) because you can dry out the meat by leaving it in for too long. However, if you have a meat thermometer you can use that to prevent overcooking in the oven. One benefit to the oven method: your sauce will be a little more flavorful, because the moisture in the crockpot tends to water down the sauce just a little bit.

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