I Cooked a Frozen Pork Loin

If you buy meat like my family, you buy it when it's on extreme sale at the grocery store.  Then you have to freeze most of it.

People tend to waste a lot of time and sacrifice texture and flavor by defrosting meat before they cook it.  I learned about this from a Cook's Illustrated experiment a few years ago with regards to steak.

The Science of Cooking Frozen Steak

You can read why it works there.  I wanted to briefly share how I cooked frozen pork loin. 

Concerns:

1. Will the pork be done enough?

2. Will it get too dry?

3. What about spatter from all the ice that builds up when you freeze meat in a bag?

Answers:

1. If you cook it long enough, and it really doesn't take that much longer. 

2.  It shouldn't.  Especially if you coat it with oil first.  

3.  Don't freeze it in a bag!

A pork chop frozen in the bag, and a pork loin frozen on a tray, and then transferred. 

Frozen in bag on left. frozen on a tray on the right.  It looks fresh!

The first mistake people make when freezing meat is putting it in a bag.  If you  have done this, then you must defrost.  

Here are two different chops.  Both are stored in a bag, but one was initially frozen on a tray, and then placed in a bag.  

Step 1:

Heat the oven to 325 degrees.  This is a lower temperature than you would cook a fresh loin (350) because you will need to cook it a little longer.  

Pro-tip: Do a better job of wiping down your stove before taking a picture of it. 

Remove the pork from the freezer when you are ready to put it in the over.  Drizzle with olive oil (this helps to keep moisture in) and season with salt and your favorite spices.  

Step 2:

Place the loin in a high rimmed baking pan.  Roast for 40 to 60 minutes.

Step 3:

After 40 minutes check the temperature.  A thinner piece of meat could already be to 145.  This one was at 130 after 40 minutes.  

A 1" thick chop was 130 degrees after 40 minutes

Step 4:

When the center temperature reaches 145 degrees, remove it from the oven and let it rest 15 minutes before serving.  

I put this one in for another 20 minutes (1 hr total) and as you can see it got slightly over done at about 154 degrees.  

I over cooked it a touch (154 instead of 145), but it still turned out pretty nice.

Not looking crispy, despite going a bit past ideal temperature.

Evenly cooked all the way through, and no dry rind.

I have done this previously with steak and it works great as well.  Try it and let me know how it works for you. 

Eat up!

I could have just referred you to this article, but here you get pictures.

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