Fried Pork Chops with Homemade Breader

This is a sponsored post for SheSpeaks/Smithfield at Walmart.

I went up to Thanksgiving for New York and even though I’m from there and lived there most of my life I felt a little culture shock. We spend most of our holidays here in Virginia, while I miss my family I don’t miss traveling during the holidays. First the menu was so far from what I’ve become used to the last five years or so. There was no Virginia Ham on the table, there was rice and beans, a lasagna and stuffed shells. I poked fun at my mom for including Lasagna and Stuffed shells until I went to the grocery store on Thanksgiving day. You know what they were out of? Not turkey, not Virginia ham but mozzarella cheese. How could I forgot that most of New York, at least the area I’m from is Italian? Of course lasagna and stuffed shells made the list for a lot of families.

That’s the best thing about traditions especially around the holidays, it doesn’t have to be a tradition for everyone, just a tradition for your family. When the weather starts to cool and especially around the holidays when all we want is comfort foods one of our traditions involves a lot of fried pork. For my family it’s fried pork chops, my grandpa likes bone in, I prefer boneless and since I’m the one doing the cooking these days that’s what I go with, boneless fried pork chops with homemade breader.

Starting with good pork is a must when making these pork chops, the Smithfield All Natural boneless chops have no added steroids, hormones or artificial ingredients.

The next must? Homemade breader! I love making our own breader for multiple reasons. For one it’s cheaper and two I pretty much never have to worry about being out because I typically have all the ingredients to make it on hand and if I don’t I just change it up a little.

In a medium sized bowl combine 1 cup of all purpose flour, 4 teaspoons salt, 4 teaspoons paprika, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 2 teaspoons onion powder and a pinch of red chili pepper flakes.

Rinse, clean and pat dry your pork chops. In a small bowl whisk together one egg and 1/3 cup milk. Pour the homemade breader onto a plate.  Coat each piece of pork in the breader mixture.

One at a time coat each piece with the egg mixture.

Immediately coat again with your breader. Repeat until each piece of pork has been coated in breader, egg mixture and breader again.

Double breading makes such a huge difference in pretty much all things friend. Alternatively you could do flour, egg, breader!  Fry over medium heat until the outside is golden brown and the temperature is between 160F and 180F. Traditionally I serve this dish with mashed potatoes and green beans, two of our favorite sides.