We start with some good bone-in pork loin chops or bone-in ribeye chops that are about 1″ thick. We want to go for the thicker pork chops because they cook better in pressure cooker environment. Look for pork chops that have good marbling too. The fat helps keep the chops moist and tender. You’ll also get better results if the pork chops spend a few minutes out of the refrigerator before starting to cook them.
We’ll use a simple rub of salt, course ground black pepper, garlic powder, oregano and flour. Mix it all together and dredge the pork chops through it. Get all the sides well coated. The we set the Instant Pot to saute mode and melt the 2 tablespoons of butter. Once it says hot, we carefully add the pork chops and let them brown on each side for about 2 minutes. This will create a nice golden brown exterior.
After each side is sauteed, we remove the chops and add the smashed garlic to the pot. Why smashed garlic? For a couple of reasons. For one, quite frankly it’s easier than chopping up the 6 cloves of garlic. Also, smashing the fresh cloves of garlic extracts the natural oils and gives us a robust flavor. Once the smashed garlic has been added to the pot, stir it around for about a minute in the butter and browned bits on the bottom of the pot. We don’t want to go longer than 1 minute because garlic can start to burn quickly. Then we press cancel, add the broth and deglaze the bottom of the bot. This is very important. Deglazing is using a wooden spoon to scrape all the browned bits on the bottom of the pot. If we leave them stuck to the pot we’ll likely get a burn notice, which we certainly don’t want. After deglazing, we add 3-4 stems of fresh thyme to liquid, then nestle the pork chops into the liquid. After a 12 minute pressure cook and an 8 minute release, we remove the pork chops and make our creamy garlic sauce.
Creamy Garlic Sauce
The creamy garlic sauce is a simple combination of broth, heavy cream, lemon juice, thyme, black pepper and flour. The sauce is made by adding all the sauce ingredients to the liquid remaining in the pot, except the flour. Use a whisk and whisk it all in well. Then, use a ladle and ladle out about ¼ of the liquid into a bowl with the flour and whisk away! This will create a thick slurry, which we then pour back into the pot and continue to whisk until its all incorporated. Hit the saute button once again and let the sauce thicken for a few minutes.
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2 large bone-in pork chops, about 1” thick ½ teaspoon kosher salt ½ teaspoon black pepper, course ground ½ teaspoon garlic powder ½ teaspoon dried oregano 2 teaspoons flour 2 tablespoons butter 6 cloves of garlic, smashed
Creamy Garlic Sauce:
1 cup chicken broth ½ cup cream ½ tablespoon lemon juice 1 ½ tablespoons flour 6–8 stems of fresh thyme ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
