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Baked Pork Chops and Apples with Brown Sugar Glaze

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A favorite dish in our house, especially during cooler weather, are pork chops and applesauce. One of my kids recently decided that applesauce is too mushy so I came up with this variation that has been a big hit with everyone in the family. These baked pork chops and apples are a favorite meal in our home.

This recipe is for baked pork chops and apples with brown sugar glaze is my family's absolute favorite dinner and it's also super easy to make!

Super Simple Steps

Here’s a quick video to show you how simple this is to prepare. You’ll find detailed step-by-step instructions directly below the video. Click here to go directly to the recipe card.

In lieu of applesauce, I slice apples and lay them in the bottom of a casserole dish.

First, layer the apples in the bottom of the pan

I sprinkle cinnamon on top of the apples and then layer the pork shop on top of them.

After sprinkling the apples with cinnamon, lay pork chops on top of them

Next, I make the sauce and pour it over the pork and apples. In case you don’t make it all the way down to the comments, one reader mentioned that she replaced half of the sugar with honey and was pleased with the result.

Finally, pour glaze evenly over pork chops before baking

Then it goes in the oven for 35-40 minutes and dinner is served! We will usually have sweet potato fries and green beans. The sweet glaze keeps the kids from complaining about vegetables since they feel like they’re getting away with an early dessert. It’s surprising how a little sprinkle of cinnamon and brown sugar can transform a meal into kid-friendly.

baked pork chop and apples on a red plate with a fork on a brown table

📋 Recipe

Baked Pork Chops and Apples with Brown Sugar Glaze

Corinne Schmitt
If you're looking for an easy dinner the whole will love, make these baked pork chops with brown sugar glaze.
5 from 67 votes
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Course Dinner
Cuisine American
Servings 4
Calories 405 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 2 apples peeled and sliced
  • 4 boneless pork chops
  • salt and pepper
  • 4 T butter
  • 4 T brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350°, Layer apples in bottom of casserole dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
  • Trim fat from pork chops. Lay on top of apple slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  • In small saucepan, melt butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, stirring constantly. Pour sauce over the pork chops and apples.
  • Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes.

Video

Notes

  • Serve with sweet potatoes, stuffing or rice
  • For a vegetable, go with green beans or a side salad
  • Feel free to swap out half the sugar and replace it with honey
  • Use whatever apples you like best. If you don’t like it overly sweet, use granny smith apples. Otherwise Fuji and gala apples work well.
  • I bake this dish uncovered
  • The recipe feeds 4 but if you’re feeding hungry teenagers, you should calculate 2 chops/heavy eater
  • You can leave the fat on, but it will make the sauce thinner
  • If you have a cinnamon allergy (or simply don’t like it) you can substitute allspice or nutmeg
  • The glaze works well for baked apples as a dessert too
  • If you want to eliminate the butter, you can use applesauce instead
  • Another reader recommends adding onions and bell pepper to the dish

Nutrition

Calories: 405kcalCarbohydrates: 25gProtein: 29gFat: 21gSaturated Fat: 11gCholesterol: 120mgSodium: 170mgPotassium: 613mgFiber: 2gSugar: 21gVitamin A: 404IUVitamin C: 4mgCalcium: 31mgIron: 1mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

90 thoughts on “Baked Pork Chops and Apples with Brown Sugar Glaze”

  1. I made this on 11/11/22. It was delicious! My husband loved it and even ate the leftovers the next day! The pork chops were tender and moist and sauce flavorable! I did add chopped onions and green peppers too! I think next time I will add another sliced apple and add pecans.

    Reply
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  8. Retiring Navy single dad, so excited to try this recipe. I’ve been trying to find new things to cook up for the kids and I, really excited to try this out. Looks and sounds delicious.

    Reply
  9. This was a great recipe. I say was because it didn’t last . I used splenda blend brown sugar and ano salt spice blend. They couldn’t have come out better. Thanks for this great recipe.

    Reply
  10. I made this tonight. I used boneless pork loin chop and gala apples. Pork come out tough and apples were not soft. I live at an altitude of 6500 ft. Does this need an adjustment for altitude or should I have covered it with foil? The pork was about 3/4 inch thick. Not happy with how it turned out.

    Reply
    • Hi Judy. I’m so sorry the recipe didn’t work for you. Honestly, I’ve never lived at altitude having grown up in the flatlands and then living on the coast all my married life. I have no idea how to adapt the recipe to take altitude into account! I’m going to reach out to some of the food bloggers I know for their advice. Sorry I don’t have an answer for you right now, but I’ll post an answer as soon as I find one.

      Reply
    • Ok, the advice I got back is that the high altitude tends to dry things out faster (hence the tough pork and apples). They recommend adding more liquid to the recipe. Amounts recommended varied from 1 to 2 tablespoons. You could just add water, or you could try apple juice which would be consistent with the flavors in the dish and wouldn’t dilute the taste. I hope this helps!

      Reply
  11. Hi I’m wanting to make this but I’m wondering if I can make it in a 9 by 13 inch pan to double it. And if I could put extra apples on top.

    Reply
    • Hi Kara, the recipe doubles easily. Literally just double the ingredients. You may need to bake an additional 5 minutes. I have never baked it with the apples on top so I can’t vouch for whether or not that affects the dish. If you try it that way, please let me know how it turns out so I can add a note about it in the recipe. I’ll try it next time I make it too and see what happens. 🙂

      Reply
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  15. Do you recommend pan frying before putting in oven? I have had cases where I put porkchops in overn without pan frying and they don’t turn out as good.

    Reply
    • Hi Rebecca, I’m sure that would improve the color of the dish, but I don’t make it that way mostly to keep the number of dirty dishes to a minimum and the recipe as simple as possible. I’ll have to give it a try and see if it makes a big enough difference to add the extra step. Thanks for the suggestion.

      Reply
    • Kay, if you click the “Next” button at the bottom of the post, it brings you to the complete recipe and instructions. To answer your question though, you bake at 350°F.

      Reply
    • I’m so glad somebody asked this. I didn’t think to click next, thinking it would pull up the next blog and assumed the entire recipe was already here. I just figured everybody here knew the proper temp for pork and I didn’t since I’m still fairly new to using things other than a microwave and making macaroni.

      Reply
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    • My family also loves this dish.I add onions and bell pepper to mine.. kind of reminds me of the Golden Mushroom soup recipe with porkchop,onions & potatoes..it’s all good…

      Reply
  18. This was fantastic… husband said it was a keeper. Will not change anything. I will also use your glaze recipe just to make the apples as a dessert.. they were wonderful. Thank you!!

    Reply
      • I see you use 4 tbs of butter. My girls are very health and diet conscience. Do you need all that butter or can we substitute it with something more healthier like chicken broth or olive oil?

        Reply
        • Hi Mary Ann,
          Great question! The best substitute in this recipe for the butter would be applesauce since it will work easily with the other flavors and provide a creaminess to the sauce. You could also try pumpkin puree which would make it even creamier, but would change the overall taste of the dish.

          Reply
  19. Making this tonight — as I’m looking at the recipe I’m thinking “this blogger sure looks familiar”…. and then I realize I met you at Focused! Looking forward to using your recipe.

    Reply
  20. Hi I really want to make this for my family tonight, but my wife is allergic to cinnamon. Is there an alternative or would it be okay to just leave it out.

    Reply
    • Hi Kris, if you don’t want to sacrifice flavor, you can substitute allspice or nutmeg. Omitting spices entirely though, won’t affect how the dish bakes so if you don’t want to try one of those, feel free to go without. I hope this helps!

      Reply
    • Hi Sarah, you can leave the fat on, but it will create more liquid in the pan and make your sauce greasy. It doesn’t ruin the dish, it just comes out a little different.

      Reply
  21. I’m making this tonight! So excited to see how it turns out, no doubt amazingly I’m sure 😉 I love how quick and simple this is to make especially for weeknights when we have school and soccer and who knows what else. Nothing is more satisfying than a homemade dinner. Thank you so much!

    Reply
    • Hi Kelly! I hope you enjoyed it! It’s one of my favorites for the same reason – perfect for busy weeknights (plus, the kids actually like it so I don’t have to listen to any complaints). 🙂

      Reply
    • Hi Lauren, my kids love stuffing (usually I buy Stove Top whole wheat stuffing) and because I always like something green on the plate, we usually have green beans too.

      Reply
  22. I have to say I did not care for this recipe. It was lacking flavor, I didn’t have a glaze, it was more of watery sauce. Everything was bland.

    Reply
    • I’m sorry to hear this Jocelyn. I’ve made it many times and never had that problem and it’s one of my family’s favorite meals. Thank you for taking the time to comment and share your opinion. I wish I could pinpoint what might have gone wrong, but perhaps it’s simply a difference in taste.

      Reply
  23. Has anyone froze this casserole and then baked later? I am trying to make some meals ahead for those busy nights when I just want to pull something from the freezer and this sounds really yummy. Thanks!

    Reply
    • I haven’t tried preparing this as a freezer meal before. I’m going to play around with the recipe and post a freezer version if I can make it work. Thanks for the idea Tracey!

      Reply
  24. I’m making these for the first time as we speak. I really didn’t want to dirty a saucepan so I opted for a paper bowl to melt butter, add cinnamon and nutmeg then heat again to dissolve sugar. The sugar came out clumpy so I sucked it up and got the saucepan out to do butter/sugar/spice combo only to have it do the same exact thing. The butter is melted but the sugar is sitting in clump type piles on top of the porkchops. Did anybody else encounter this problem? Did I not heat the butter/sugar/spice combo long enough on the stove? Also, I’m cooking this in the oven uncovered since it doesn’t specify whether to cover the dish whjle cooking or not.

    Reply
    • I’m sorry you had trouble with the glaze. I haven’t tried it in the microwave but I’ve never had trouble on the stove. My guess is that it needed to cook longer to melt the brown sugar. Don’t worry though, it should break down in the oven. Yes, the dish bakes uncovered. I’ll add that to the recipe now to avoid confusion for others in the future. Thanks for pointing out the omission!

      Reply
  25. Made them last night May 19 2016. My wife of over40 years said this is a keeper. Two chops & two apples and the rest of the spices I cut back about 1/2. large chops just melted in our mouth. I will be making it again soon. Paul

    Reply
    • Hi Paul, I’m so glad you and your wife liked them (and thanks for sharing your variation so others can tweak to their preferences too). Do you happen to be a retired Marine? If so, ooh-rah and thanks for your service. 🙂

      Reply
  26. I can’t wait to try this recipe…we love pork chops with applesauce, so I’m sure that this will become a family favorite. How many servings does this make?

    Reply
    • This is by far the most popular recipe on my blog so I hope you enjoy it as much as my family and many others do! This recipe makes 4 servings. For my family of 6, I actually double the recipe so my husband and I can have the leftovers for lunch the next day. 🙂

      Reply
  27. AAH! I’m halfway through making the recipe, for the bajillionth time(even my kids devour it–they call it “Apple Pie for dinner”) and suddenly the recipe isn’t on your blog! What happened??

    Reply
    • Rebekah, there seems to be a glitch in the program I use for my recipes. Working on it now. Thanks for commenting and letting me know!

      Reply
    • Thanks for pointing that out Sheila! Looks like I somehow deleted a line from the recipe during one of my edits. I’ve corrected the recipe, but to answer your question – sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper after you’ve placed it on top of the apple slices (and before you top with the glaze).

      Reply
  28. I tripled the recipe (big eaters) , and I used pork chops on the bone , my question is do you cover them while baking? I know they will need to cook longer but not sure if need to be covered. Recipe didn’t say. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Hi Jen! I use granny smith apples because the tartness adds dimension and keeps the dish from being overly sweet. I have also used Gala, Fuji, and Pink Lady apples though and they all work well. Yes, you should just halve all of the ingredients if you are cooking for two. I actually double the recipe since there are 6 people in my family and two of them are teenage boys. I have to cook mine a little longer though when I double it so you might want to knock 5 minutes off the cooking time to prevent over-cooking the pork.

      Reply
    • Thanks for coming back and letting me know how the recipe worked for you. The tip to replace some of the sugar with honey is really smart! I’m going to add a note within the post to recommend it per your suggestion.

      Reply
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    • Hi there I can tell find the glaze recipe anywhere and the steps to make it would you mind sending it I’d like to make it tonight for the family thank you so much ?

      Reply
      • Hi Kristen, if you click the “Next” button above (at the bottom of the post), it will take you to the next page where the full recipe is. Let me know if you have trouble with it.

        Reply
  30. Hi Corinne – I’m with Cynthia… LOVE the combo of apples and pork chops. This is a great cold weather option when it’s not warm enough outside to make on the grill. Hugs, Holly

    Reply
  31. This recipe looks great! I love the combination of the apples and pork chops. I love eating pork chops, but never really know what to do with them. Now I do!

    Reply

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