Who says you need an Instant Pot to make a quick, easy, juicy Pork Tenderloin? Not me. This pork tenderloin recipe is foolproof, quick, and the clean-up is a breeze.
This dish is also budget-friendly, and you can easily tweak it to suit different dietary needs like I do. For instance, I mostly follow an AIP Paleo diet for myself, as I have three autoimmune diseases (for more on the subject you can read my Autoimmune Story on my About page). However, my husband is more a low-carb kind of guy, flirting with dirty Keto. This recipe meets both our needs, and I bet it will please your whole family… Unless one of you is vegan, which is a completely different food story.
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The ingredients for this recipe are simple, easy to find, whole and fresh. The only processed element is one little teaspoon of mustard for the whole recipe, which you can skip if your heart desires (I did say it’s tweakable). Here is the complete list:
- Pork Tenderloin
- Extra-virgin Olive Oil
- Sea Salt (here I’m using Hymalian Salt)
- Black Pepper
- Garlic
- Lemon
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Dijon Mustard
You’ll also need aluminum foil to bake the pork tenderloin “al cartoccio”. That is what we call it in Italian; it means baked inside a foil pouch or packet. Alternatively, you can use parchment paper. It will make your pork super juicy, foolproof, and the clean-up will be a joke.
OK, it’s time to dress up our pork tenderloin. Let’s chop the garlic together with the sea salt or Himalayan salt until you have a coarse paste (I like mine chunky). This process will draw more juice and fragrance out of your fresh garlic, infusing the marinade and the meat with much more flavor.
For the marinade, whisk together the olive oil, mustard, lemon juice, fresh thyme, black pepper, and garlic mash/paste.
NB: Add the mustard and ground black pepper to it if you are NOT sensitive to them. For those currently on AIP Paleo, leave them out! The pork will be flavorful enough without them.
Now the fun part begins! Get a spoon or a brush and coat the pork tenderloin with the marinade on all sides.
And just like that our pork tenderloin is dressed for the oven and ready to be wrapped up in foil. Be careful not to let the foil touch the sides and the top of the pork. You want to create a tent around it, so it will trap the juices and flavors, while allowing the heat to circulate.
Oven time
Now, leave the rest of the work to your preheated oven. For the final touch, don’t forget to uncover the pork tenderloin and put it under the broiler at 500 F for an additional 10 minutes, until the outside is a thin golden-brown crust.
There you have it!
Seriously, how easy is this pork tenderloin recipe? My favorite part about it is how delicious it is the next day or two. I usually make this quantity for just my husband and me, so I always have leftovers in the fridge. You can make sandwiches or salads, or just snack on it standing by the kitchen sink like my husband loves to do.
Buon appetito!
Easy Roasted Pork Tenderloin
Ingredients
- 2.5 lbs pork tenderloin
- 2 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 3 cloves garlic chopped to a paste
- 3 tbsp lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 3 tbsp thyme leaves
- 1 tsp black pepper optional
- 1 tsp mustard
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 420 degrees and cover a large baking pan with foil.
- Chop and mash the garlic cloves with the sea salt to a chunky paste.
- Whisk together the olive oil, mustard, lemon juice, fresh thyme, black pepper, and garlic mash/paste.
- Place the meat on the foiled pan and proceed to spread the marinade all over the tenderloin(s) until every single inch is generously covered.
- Tent the pan with a piece of aluminum foil on top. Tuck the top foil into the bottom foil, creating a “cartoccio” around the pork but making sure it stays loose (tentlike) at the top without touching the meat.
- Bake for 25 minutes and check the temperature with a meat thermometer, making sure that it reads at least 150F.
- Take off the top foil slowly and carefully. Make sure you wear oven mitts as the steam is very hot.
- Pour all the juices and bits into a pan or a bowl. You can proceed to reduce them and make gravy, or you can simply reserve them to spoon over the roast right before serving.
- Set your oven to broil, and bake the uncovered tenderloin(s) for 10 more minutes (5 minutes per side).
- When the meat is a nice golden brown, take it out of the oven and leave it on a cutting board with a piece of foil loosely placed on top, sides left open. It needs to rest for at least 10 minutes to prevent the juices from running, leaving the pork too dry.
- Transfer the roast to a serving platter. If you like what I did, you can garnish it with some of the ingredients, like lemon slices and sprigs of fresh herbs.
- Slice into 1-inch pieces or thicker and serve with gravy on the side or spoon over the reserved juices.
so easy and delish
Thank you! I’m so happy you like it 🙂