How to Grill Pork Chops

Most people who think they dislike pork chops have only eaten overcooked ones. For decades the advice was to cook pork until it was uniformly white, and that advice outlived the reason for it. The USDA safe minimum for whole cuts of pork is 145°F with a three-minute rest — the same as beef and lamb — and pork cooked to that number is a completely different piece of meat from one taken to 160°F.

At 145°F the center may still look faintly pink. That is expected, and it is the safe minimum doing its job rather than a sign of undercooking.

Thickness is the whole game

A thin, half-inch supermarket chop is nearly impossible to grill well. It reaches 145°F before it has any color on the outside, so you either eat a pale chop or you overcook it chasing a crust. Buy chops at least an inch thick — inch-and-a-quarter is better — and the problem largely solves itself, because there’s enough mass to sear the exterior while the middle catches up.

Bone-in chops have an additional advantage: the bone slows heat transfer nearby and adds flavor, so they're more forgiving. Probe away from the bone when you check, or you’ll read low and overcook the rest.

Brining, and whether it's worth it

Pork is lean, and brining genuinely helps. A basic wet brine — roughly a quarter-cup of salt per liter of water — for 30 minutes to two hours lets the meat absorb and hold on to moisture through cooking. It is the single most effective thing you can do for a lean chop, more than any marinade or sauce.

A dry brine (salting generously and leaving it uncovered in the fridge for a few hours) does much the same and gives a better surface for browning, because you aren’t adding surface water. If you’re short on time, dry-brine. If you have an hour and a bowl, wet-brine.

The method and timing

Sear both sides over the hot zone to build color, then move to the cooler side and close the lid to finish. For very thick chops, reverse the order — cook gently over indirect heat first, then sear at the end — which gives you far more control over the final temperature.

Pull a few degrees early, because carryover heat keeps cooking the chop after it leaves the grill, and rest it three minutes. As with everything on this site, the reliable way to hit 145°F is an instant-read thermometer, not a timer.