Pork tenderloin—one of America’s favorite cuts of pork—is supremely tender and fast-cooking. While I appreciate those attributes, this cut isn’t exactly a flavor powerhouse. The test kitchen has addressed this lack of flavor by creating some great recipes that dress up pork tenderloin with potent crumb crusts, intense spice rubs, or fancy sauces or glazes. For maximum impact, I decided to pack the inside of the meat with a bold stuffing.
Behind the Recipes
Bump Up Pork Tenderloin’s Mild Flavor with Our Knockout Stuffing
Our butterflying method keeps the filling where you want it: inside the pork.
By Published Apr. 2, 2019.
Sign up for the Cook's Country Dinner Tonight newsletter
10 ingredients. 45 minutes. Quick, easy, and fresh weeknight recipes.
America's Test Kitchen will not sell, rent, or disclose your email address to third parties unless otherwise notified. Your email address is required to identify you for free access to content on the site. You will also receive free newsletters and notification of America's Test Kitchen specials.
But before I did, I had two big questions to answer: How, exactly, would I stuff the meat? And what would I stuff it with? For inspiration, I dug up six wildly diverse recipes for stuffed pork tenderloin and prepared them in the test kitchen. The techniques for stuffing entailed everything from tying two tenderloins together with filling between them to cutting a pocket in the meat to using the handle of a wooden spoon to bore a hole down the length of the tenderloin.
Recipe
Pork Tenderloin Roulade with Bacon, Apple, and Gruyère
To bump up the mild flavor of pork tenderloin, we worked from the inside out.Get the Recipe
I found that butterflying held the stuffing in place most reliably. “Butterflying” means slicing the tenderloin almost in half down its length so you can open it up like a book. By doing this, I could lay stuffing on the pork and roll it up like a jelly roll. I found that pounding the butterflied meat to an even thickness made for tidier rolling and more even cooking; it also created a larger surface area that held more stuffing. Trussing the stuffed tenderloins with kitchen twine ensured that the stuffing stayed secure inside the pork.
Finally, pork tenderloin that packed a wallop of intense meaty, savory flavor.
Now it was time to nail down the stuffing itself. In my initial test recipes, stuffing that used bread or bread crumbs absorbed pork juices and turned gummy. Those based on herb pastes (basically riffs on pesto) tasted good but didn’t feel substantial enough to warrant the work. I wanted a knockout stuffing.
Our favorite tenderloin from the initial recipes was stuffed with a simple mix of apple and bacon. For having only two ingredients, it offered a big payoff, hitting both salty and sweet notes. But it lacked depth and cohesion. Softening the chopped apple in bacon fat (left behind after crisping the bacon) added dimension, and sautéing a minced shallot and some fresh thyme added a steady hum of background flavor. As for a binder, grated Gruyère cheese proved perfect; the nutty cheese melted in the oven and united the bacon and apple into a cohesive filling.
For a final test, I butterflied and pounded two tenderloins, loaded on the tasty stuffing, rolled them up and tied them, and then seared the tenderloins in a hot skillet before finishing them in a 350-degree oven. Slicing through their gorgeously browned crusts revealed the soft, cheesy, extremely flavorful stuffing. It smelled amazing—and tasted even better. Finally, pork tenderloin that packed a wallop of intense meaty, savory flavor.