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These slow cooker ranch pork chops are the ultimate set-it-and-forget-it dinner. Three ingredients, wrapped up in individual foil packets so they stay impossibly tender and juicy, with a buttery ranch sauce that’s perfect spooned over mashed potatoes. Let the slow cooker do all the work while you go live your life.
Why You’ll Love This
- Only 3 ingredients — pork chops, a ranch packet, and butter. That’s genuinely the whole list, no asterisks.
- The foil packets keep everything moist — no more dried-out pork. The steam trapped inside does what no amount of careful watching ever could.
- Hands-off cooking — load it up in the morning and come home to dinner already done.
- Built-in sauce — the buttery ranch liquid pooled inside each packet is liquid gold over potatoes or egg noodles.
- Easy cleanup — foil packets mean almost nothing to wash.
A Word About the Ingredients
The pork chops want to be about an inch thick, boneless if you can find them. Bone-in chops work too — and there’s an argument to be made that they have more flavor — but the boneless ones are a little easier to manage in the foil, and more forgiving on cooking time. Thinner chops will cook faster and can go a little rubbery if you push them too long, so if all you can find are the thin-cut ones, keep an eye on the clock and lean toward the shorter end.
The ranch packet: just the regular kind. Hidden Valley is what I usually grab, but the store brand works fine. There’s a buttermilk version that adds a little more tang if you want it.
The butter is the other thing. A full stick, unsalted. I know that sounds like a lot, because it is a lot. But it’s four pork chops, so you’re talking about two tablespoons per chop, and once it melts and mingles with the ranch and the pork juices you end up with this incredible little pool of sauce inside each packet. Don’t skimp on it. This is not the recipe where you start making substitutions for the sake of your cholesterol. Make it right and eat it with a salad.
Ingredients
How You Make It
Tear off four sheets of heavy-duty foil, each one big enough to wrap around a pork chop with room to fold. I go generous with the foil — I’ve had packets leak on me before and it’s not the end of the world, but it’s annoying, and you lose some of that butter you were protecting. If your foil feels thin, just double it up. No shame in that.
Pat the pork chops dry before you do anything else. This isn’t fancy technique, it just helps the seasoning stick instead of sliding around. Place one chop in the middle of each sheet.
Now sprinkle the ranch seasoning over the tops and sides — I try to divide the packet roughly evenly between four chops, which means about a quarter of the packet per chop, give or take. I don’t measure it. I just eyeball and try to be fair about it, which is more than I can say for how I divide the last of the wine.
Lay the butter slices right on top of each chop. I usually cut the stick into about eight or ten pieces and put two or three on each chop, spread out a little so they cover the surface.
Then fold the foil up: bring the long sides together first, roll them down to seal, then crimp the ends closed. You want each packet snug. Not airtight necessarily, but tight enough that the liquid stays put.
Set the packets in the bottom of your slow cooker — a five or six quart works well. They can be close together, just try not to stack them if you can help it. I’ve done it when I had to and the chops on top cooked a little differently than the ones on the bottom. Still edible. Just not as even.
LOW for six to seven hours. HIGH for about three to three and a half. I almost always do LOW because I’m usually starting this in the morning and I want it ready at dinner, not at three in the afternoon. The LOW setting is more forgiving too — if you lose track of time, the chops aren’t going to punish you too badly for an extra half hour the way they might on HIGH.
When you open the packets — and please, face them away from you when you do, that steam is genuinely hot and it will surprise you every single time, I don’t care how many times you’ve made this — spoon that buttery ranch liquid right over the top of the chop on the plate. Every last drop.
If You Want to Mix It Up
A thin lemon slice tucked under the chop before sealing gives the sauce a little brightness. Nice if you want something slightly different without changing the whole thing.
If you’re cooking for two, just cut the recipe in half. Two packets, same timing. The thickness of the chop is what drives the clock, not the number of packets.
Bone-in chops work fine — just add about thirty minutes to the LOW cook time and make sure your foil is generous enough to close around the bone without tearing.
Leftovers
Just keep the chops in their foil in the fridge. They’ll be good for a few days. Rewarm them in a low oven — maybe 300 degrees for twenty minutes or so — still in the foil, which keeps them from drying out. Or back in the slow cooker with just a splash of water in the bottom, lid on, LOW for about an hour.
Cold leftovers over a bowl of rice, cutting the pork into strips with whatever ranch butter was left in the foil — not a dignified meal exactly, but not a bad one either.
One Last Thing
Serve this over mashed potatoes if you can. Egg noodles work too. Green beans on the side, or peas, or just a salad if you’re tired of washing vegetables. Some crusty bread to drag through the sauce.
It’s a real dinner. The kind that makes the end of a hard day feel like it means something — even if the slow cooker did most of the heavy lifting.