Oven Baked 3-Ingredient Pork Chops with Canned Pineapple

These Baked Pork Chops with pineapple are sweet, tender, and wonderfully easy. Canned pineapple rings and brown sugar make a glossy sauce while the chops bake, with caramelized edges that feel a little special. You’re going to love how simple this cozy dinner is.

Why You’ll Love It

• Just three main ingredients — bone-in pork chops, canned pineapple rings, and light brown sugar.
• Easy oven dinner — cover, bake, uncover, and spoon the juices over everything.
• Sweet, glossy sauce — pineapple juice and brown sugar bake into a sticky, caramel-like finish.
• Flexible sides — serve it with rice, peas, mashed potatoes, or buttered noodles.

Ingredient Notes

Use pineapple rings packed in juice, not syrup. The juice is part of the sauce here, so you want that clean, fruity flavor without adding more sweetness than the brown sugar already brings. Store brand is fine. This is baked pork chops, not a peace treaty.

Bone-in chops are my preference because they tend to stay juicier through the longer bake time. They should be about 3/4-inch thick. Thin chops will cook too fast and can turn dry before the sauce has had a chance to do its lovely sticky thing. Been there. Chewed through it anyway, because I hate waste and apparently enjoy consequences.

Light brown sugar gives the sauce a mild molasses flavor without taking over. If all you have is regular granulated sugar, the recipe will still work, though it won’t have quite the same warm, caramel-like depth.

The recipe doesn’t require salt and pepper, surprisingly, but you can lightly season the chops before baking if you like. Both dinners disappear.

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in pork chops, about 3/4-inch thick
• 1 (20-ounce) can pineapple rings in juice, not syrup—save that juice, for heaven’s sake
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed down a little, not loose and fluffy
• A little oil or cooking spray for the baking dish

Instructions

Heat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a medium casserole dish, about 9×13 inches, with oil or cooking spray. Nothing dramatic—just enough so you’re not scraping pork bits off the bottom later.

Pat the pork chops dry on both sides with paper towels. This is one of those small steps I used to skip when I was rushing, then wonder why the dish seemed watery. Dry chops cook more evenly and don’t add unnecessary moisture to the pan. Lay them in one layer in the prepared dish, with a little breathing room between them if possible.

Open the pineapple rings and pour the juice into a small bowl or measuring cup. Set the pineapple rings aside. Do not dump the juice down the drain.

Add the packed light brown sugar to the pineapple juice. Stir it with a fork or whisk until most of the sugar dissolves. It may look a little grainy, and that’s perfectly fine. The oven takes care of it. Pour this mixture evenly over and around the pork chops, tilting the dish gently if you need to spread the liquid.

Place one pineapple ring on top of each pork chop. If there are extra rings in the can, tuck them around the chops in the open spaces. They’ll cook down in the sauce and get those brown, sticky edges.

Loosely cover the dish with foil, making a little tent so it doesn’t stick to the pineapple. Bake for 20 minutes. The foil helps the pork cook gently at the beginning and keeps it from drying out. Don’t seal the foil down like you’re storing government documents; loose is fine.

Carefully remove the foil after 20 minutes—watch the steam; it will get you right in the face if you’re not paying attention. Spoon some of the pan juices over the pork chops and pineapple rings. Then return the dish to the oven uncovered for another 20 to 25 minutes.

The chops are done when the thickest part reaches at least 145°F on an instant-read thermometer. The sauce should be bubbling and a little thicker, with a glossy look around the edges. The pineapple should be deep golden in spots. If your chops are especially thick, they may need the full 25 minutes uncovered. If they’re thinner than 3/4 inch, start checking sooner, because dry pork is nobody’s friend.

If you want more color on the pineapple, move the dish to the top rack and broil on high for 2 to 3 minutes. Stay right there. I mean it. Brown sugar goes from caramelized to “well, that smells expensive” in a blink.

Let the pork chops rest for about 5 minutes before serving. Spoon the sweet pineapple sauce over each chop, and put a ring on top. Rice is especially good with this, since it catches every bit of sauce. Mashed potatoes do a fine job too.

Variations

Bake a couple of chops in one corner of the dish without pineapple rings on top. They’ll still get some of the sweet pan juices, unless you go to great lengths to keep them separate.

Stir a tablespoon or two of yellow mustard into the pineapple juice and brown sugar before pouring it over the pork. It adds a tangy little bite and cuts the sweetness some. Boneless chops work too, but those need watching; start checking them around 30 minutes total baking time because they can dry out faster.

You can tuck thick onion slices or baby carrots around the pork chops if you’re trying to stretch dinner. They roast right in the sauce. Bell pepper isn’t terrible exactly—it just tastes like the meal can’t make up its mind what it wants to be. So there’s that.

Storage & Reheating

Store leftovers in a shallow covered container in the refrigerator within 2 hours. They’ll keep well for a few days, though the pineapple gets softer after sitting in the sauce overnight. I happen to like it that way.

To reheat, put a pork chop and some sauce in a covered dish and warm it until hot all the way through. The microwave works for a quick lunch, but the oven is kinder to the meat if you have the time. Add a spoonful of the sauce over the chop before reheating so it doesn’t dry out. Cold sliced pork with a little pineapple on top is not bad either, standing at the counter in your slippers. Not that I’ve done that. Often.

Final Notes

There’s something about recipes like this that I don’t want to improve too much. You could add mustard, onions, pepper, all sorts of things—and sometimes you should, depending on what’s wilting in the refrigerator—but the plain little original has its own place.

So make the rice. Open the pineapple. Let the brown sugar get sticky around the edges of the pan. And if fruit on pork seems suspicious, just make a plain chop. More caramelized pineapple for the rest of us…