I Cooked All These Meals From One $16 Cut Of Meat

You have walked past this every time you've gone to Costco and didn't even know it. It is the pork loin. This might be the cheapest cut of meat in the whole meat department. It is $1.98 per pound. And this thing weighs over eight pounds. Today, we're gonna go through and I'm gonna show you three different ways to cut this pork loin and how to cook it. I'm gonna do three different recipes. Let's get started and break down this big cut of meat. All right, so here's our whole pork loin. So you can see on this side, we have more of a darker color. There's several different muscle groups happening right here. In the middle is gonna be kind of like your good chops. So it's real lean, real has that pink color. It's gonna have the chops here in the center. And then on this side, it just goes into the rib section. So it goes a little bit wider and we're gonna do a couple different preparations today but I wanted to show you the versatility of this whole cut of meat. So what we're gonna do today is I'm gonna save a little bit of this and we're gonna grind it because I like to grind this part because of the more porky kind of flavor that this side has. We're gonna make breakfast sausages out of it. We're gonna take individual chops out of the center and I'm gonna show you what preparation I do with just a standard pork chop. And then this last piece, I'm gonna cube it up and we are going to braise it and make a little guisada de puerco. So hopefully I said that right, but I'm gonna make a green salsa that we are going to braise with the pork and it's gonna be pull apart, delicious, make great outstanding tacos. So we got a lot of work to do, so let's get to it. First thing I'm gonna do is we're just gonna take this piece. You can see where it starts to, right here, the color starts to change. I'm gonna take it right there and I'm gonna save this. So we'll probably add some fat back to it to make sure it's a nice juicy sausage but I wanted to show you that preparation today also. Flip it around, we're gonna start taking our chops. Now, as you can see, nice and lean here in the middle, nice and lean. So we're gonna take our chops. I like a little thicker cut pork chops. We're gonna go about an inch and make some nice chops. Now you can trim some of the surface fat off if you want. You can keep it on if you want, it's completely up to you. The rest of this, I'm just gonna cube up for our braise. Again, I'm gonna keep the fat on there. You can cut as many chops off here as you want. This is a great cut to do so. We got a ton of pork chops. We got some cubed meat for our braise and then we're gonna grind some of this for breakfast sausage. Also remember, this is $16.15. Even if you have a big family like I do, I got four kids. We got several meals here for $16 in the meat cost. That is a tremendous value. You just can't beat that kind of value in the meat department. So let's head to our first recipe. This is a perfect time to say thank you to our sponsor for this video, Made In. It was kind of a funny conversation because they were like, hey, can we send you a couple of pans so you can use them? And I was like, oh no, no, I got you covered. I got a whole stack of these pans and I use them all the time. I got nonstick, I have the stainless steel, I have the high carbon steel. Their products are amazing and they really make cooking easier. Made In makes professional quality pans for the home cook. I have used these almost exclusively in the last couple of years. This is a company that I really, really love. Today, I'm gonna be using this 12 inch fry pan from the Stainless Collection. The cool thing about this is when you're sauteing on the stove, this handle really stays cool and then you can just pop the whole thing in the oven. It's oven safe for like 800 degrees. My oven or most people's oven don't go to 800 degrees. You could have just said 8,000 or whatever, but it's oven safe to 800 degrees. Check out the Stainless Collection and Made In's other cookware by using the link in my description to save on your order. And thanks to Made In for sponsoring this video. For our recipes, we're gonna start with breakfast. I wanted to show the versatility of the pork loin and show you all the way through how the different ways you can cook this piece of meat. So we're gonna take that portion that I set aside earlier and we're gonna pass through the grinder two times, add our spices and boom, we got breakfast. If you wanna go more in depth on how to make sausage, put a note in the comments because I would love to make a video about this. I love making sausage. We'll break out all the stuff, the casings. We'll make different kinds of sausage. Throw me a comment that says, yes, I would love to learn how to make more sausage. Who doesn't love breakfast sausage? So we are gonna make it right now. Let's go to it. I'm gonna show you how. To our two pounds of pork and half a pound of bacon, we're gonna add the following spices and get it marinating. We're gonna take one tablespoon of sage, half a teaspoon of red pepper flake, one tablespoon of brown sugar, one tablespoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, and half a teaspoon of dry thyme. Let's go ahead and marinate this bad boy for at least an hour, but up to overnight in the fridge. Then we're gonna get to grinding. All right, so here's my grinder set up. We're gonna make some breakfast sausage. Here is our marinated pork that we already put the spice mixture in. We're using pork on here, so it's on the leaner side. So you gotta add a little more fat to it. If you can find fat back in the grocery store, that's the best, but you know what I've done? I put about a half a pound of bacon in with our two pounds of pork so that, you know, we're just gonna get a little more smoky flavor, get a little more fat. It's gonna be delicious. But again, the trick is add a little bit of bacon. Bacon makes everything better, doesn't it? I think so. A link to all the equipment I use in this video is in the description. So basically we're gonna take this through our grinder two times, and then we're gonna have a bulk breakfast sausage that's gonna be delicious. Oh yeah, this is gonna be a little loud, so I'm gonna turn down the volume. Here we go. The first grind is through. I'm gonna put it through a second grind. The reason we do that is that first grind is really very chunky still. It needs another grind through to really break up those big pieces of pork. So two times through this, the smaller die that came with the set to make sure it's the perfect consistency for a breakfast sausage. All right, so here is our breakfast sausage. So from here, you can portion them up and freeze them in individual portions so they're ready for you on that Saturday morning where it's time to make breakfast for the family. But for now, let's go ahead and cook a few of these up and see how they taste. Let's go. Here is our breakfast sausage. Let's see how it came out. Let's give it a try. It is very good. It's a little more lean than normal sausage because we used a pork one. But man, those spices really came through. The bacon really helps. Gives it like a smoky flavor. Man, I might start adding bacon into my breakfast sausage all the time. This one's a keeper. It's like a happy accident. When we don't have fat back, we add bacon and now we have something that is, ooh, super good. Delicious. Next, we're gonna braise some pork. Now, I love braised pork. I love it in tacos. So we're gonna make guisada de puerco, which basically means just braised pork. I like to use it with tomatillos, with poblano peppers, lime juice, cilantro. Make it kind of green and delicious. Let it simmer for a long time. So that's what we're doing today. I'm gonna make some guisada de puerco tacos and they are gonna be delicious. Let's head to the recipe. To our hot pan, we're gonna add two pounds of our cubed pork. We're gonna sear that off in that hot pan and then remove it. Then we're gonna add our sliced onion. We're gonna add poblano peppers. We're gonna add our garlic cloves and then saute for about three minutes. To that pan, we're gonna add a beer, which may or may not have been sampled. I'll never tell. We're gonna scrape all those flavor crystals off of the bottom of the pan. So getting the maximum amount of flavor in that sauce. We're gonna reduce all that liquid for about three more minutes and then return the pork to the pan. We're gonna add our two pounds of tomatillos and four cups of chicken broth and a bunch of cilantro. After that, we are just gonna let it sit and braise for about two hours. It's gonna be delicious. This has really come down and really made a cohesive sauce. These tomatillos are broken down. Everything is broken down. The pork is really shreddable. So what I'm gonna do now is we're gonna put in some lime juice to taste. We're gonna put some extra salt and then I'm gonna show you how I break it all up. This smells amazing. I love cilantro, lime, all these flavors. It is gonna be so, so, so good. So what I do from here, cause I wanna keep it really, I wanna keep it kind of chunky is I'm just gonna take a pastry blender. You may have a potato masher or other things. We're just gonna give it a little bit of a push to break up some of the ingredients, but not all of them. I don't want a puree. I want it kind of chunky, you know? Now I could put this back on the heat and reduce it down, but I'm gonna go ahead. We're gonna strain it out and put it on some tacos. All right, here we go. So we got all of our tortillas ready. We got everything ready. I'm gonna make a guisada de puerco taco. So always corn tortilla. Come on now, don't mess around. No flour tortilla for this stuff. That's for my kids. For all the taquerias, you know how they do it. They go double corn, two corn tortillas, cause we are not messing around. Again, we're gonna take our guisada. I can't get over how good this smells. All right, so we're gonna put a little bit of diced onion, a little bit of extra cilantro, a little squeeze of lime. Woo! And we're gonna watch out cause this one's gonna be a little messy. So here we go. This is awesome. This is one of the best things I've made in a while. All those flavors work great together. The cilantro, lime, pork, there's nothing better than that. Taco Tuesday just got an upgrade. Now we're gonna move to the center of the pork loin, the pork chops. Everybody loves pork chops. Who doesn't love pork chops? Unless you're my wife. And if you know, you've seen a previous video. If you know, you know. Pork chops are very simple. Just don't overcook them. That's the name of the game. So I'm gonna show you the easiest way to go ahead and sear some pork chops and they are delicious every time. Let's hit it. We are going to take our chops and just season them simply with salt and pepper. To a screaming hot pan, we're gonna sear those off. And remember, don't forget to season the other side. Interesting fact, the fire department did get called during the filming of this video. So we got that going for us. After the sear is done, we're gonna go ahead and put these in the oven until they reach an internal temperature of about 145 degrees. We will then pull them out and start the butter basting process. A little butter, a little fresh thyme. You know, we keep it simple. Once they reach an internal temperature of 150 to 155 degrees, we're gonna pull them from the butter back. My dog, Gory, is ready for dinner. All right, so here's our beautiful pork chop. This is about as perfect as it gets. So let's give it a try. This pork chop turned out so good. The flavor is awesome. Again, don't be afraid to cook your pork chops a little bit under medium well or well done. Pork does not have all the parasites it used to have in the 50s when it got all bad rap. Make yourself a nice medium pork chop. You're gonna thank me. I really think you will. Man, it's so good. Take a look at all of the food that we got from one pork loin. This was just a sampling of all the things you could do with the pork loin. So next time you go to Costco and you pass by the pork section, take a look, get a pork loin, and cook it all these different kinds of ways. If you like this video, check out the next one. I'll see you there.