Parmesan Breaded Pork Chops

Every so often, we’ll use a little dairy other than grass-fed butter or pastured cream when we cook.  Typically these other occasions involve cheese, because there’s something about good cheese that is hard to resist.  So for today’s recipe, I thought I’d pull one out of our book that uses a liberal amount of Parmesan cheese and a host of herbs for a delicious breading on quick baked pork chops.  This same breading would also go well on halibut, chicken, veal, even salmon…so don’t stop yourself from giving this a try just because you don’t have any pork chops in the freezer.

Gather Up:

• 3 to 4 pastured pork chops (about 1-1/2 to 2 pounds total)
• 1/2 cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup grass-fed butter
• 2 tbsp coconut flour
• 2 tsp no-salt seasoning blend
• 2 tsp dried parsley flakes
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Combine the coconut flour, Parmesan, parsley, seasoning blend, and black pepper in a gallon-sized freezer bag.  Shake to combine well, then set aside.  Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl or over the stove in a small pan.

Brush each pork chop on both sides with the melted butter, then place them one at a time into the bag.  Shake to coat well, then place on a rimmed baking dish.  Continue with the remaining pork chops until they have all been coated.  If you have any bare spots (and any breading left), you can brush a little extra butter on those spots and sprinkle the breading onto them.

Bake in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes, until the juices run clear or an instant-read thermometer poked into the center reads about 145 degrees.  Remove and let set for a few extra minutes on the counter while you wrap up your side dishes.

Trim away from the bone and serve up along side some lemon-Parmesan asparagus (look for this recipe soon), and any other veggies or salad you like.  Nothing to it!