This dish is like that one friend who never takes more than five minutes to get ready but always looks chic and put-together. While pork tenderloin has many virtues (it’s a quick-cooking and relatively inexpensive lean protein), it often needs some help in the flavor department. We sear the pork first to get a golden brown crust, then add a sweet-meets-sour mix of red wine vinegar and honey to deglaze the pan. While the pork rests fresh cherries have their turn in the pan, giving up their juices, which reduce to a syrupy sauce. Take advantage of cherry season while you can, but you can also substitute whole red grapes in the fall for a twist.
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What you’ll need
Rimmed Baking Sheet
$32 At Amazon
Large Skillet
$74 At Amazon
Tongs
$21 At Amazon
Recipe information
Yield
4 servings
Ingredients
2
¼
½
1
3
12
2
3
Preparation
Step 1
Place 2 pork tenderloins (about 2 lb. total) on a small rimmed baking sheet and season all over with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Step 2
Combine ¼ cup honey, ½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes, and 1 cup red wine vinegar in a measuring glass or small bowl and stir to dissolve honey; set aside.
Step 3
Heat 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Cook tenderloins, turning occasionally, until golden brown all over, 6–8 minutes total. Using tongs, transfer to a large plate.
Step 4
Add remaining 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil to pan and arrange 12 oz. shallots (about 11 medium), peeled, halved lengthwise, or 2 small red onions, quartered, cut side down, in skillet; season with salt. Cook, undisturbed, until beginning to char underneath, about 3 minutes. Scoot shallots to edges of skillet and return tenderloins along with any juices that have collected on plate to pan. Add reserved vinegar mixture and bring to a simmer. Cook, turning pork every few minutes and reducing heat as necessary to maintain a gentle simmer, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of meat registers 140° and shallots are tender, 7–12 minutes. Transfer tenderloins to a cutting board and let rest 10 minutes.
Step 5
While pork is resting, add 2 cups pitted fresh (or frozen) sweet cherries (about 10 oz.) to pan and cook, stirring, until cherries are warmed through and sauce is beginning to look syrupy, about 4 minutes (you may need a couple minutes more if using frozen cherries). Remove from heat. Add 3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces, and remaining 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar and swirl to combine; season with salt.
Step 6
Slice pork and arrange on a platter or plates. Spoon agrodolce cherries and shallots over.
How would you rate Pork Tenderloin With Agrodolce Cherries?
Leave a Review
Reviews (11)
Back to TopThis was great! The red wine vinegar was not at all overpowering. If that happens to you, you might try reducing it more, most of the vinegar should simmer off here. My only deviation from the recipe was that I covered the skillet whole the pork was coming up to temp to speed that up.
Rob
Dayton, OH
1/31/2024
You have to love vinegar to appreciate this recipe because it is basically straight vinegar. The cool times were way off and the recipe forgets to mention when to cover whole cooking because it takes much longer to get the pork to 140 with the lid off. I was bummed with it overall and it wasn’t fun to cook.
Joe shmoe
New York, ny
9/2/2023
Great recipe but the vinegar is overpowering. Might try again cooking with a cup of red wine and adding 2 tbsp of vinegar at the end of switching ingredients completely and cooking with an apple cider and apples.
P&J
Vancouver, BC
8/27/2023
This is a great recipe! The only reason I gave it four stars is because I kind of disagreed with a few of the things that they said you should do. For one, I forgot to get all the shallots and I used a number of smaller onions from my garden. I feel this added more nuance to the recipe. The second thing is that I wanted my onions to caramelize more. 3 to 4 minutes Cooking on shallots is just not going to give them that nice pliable, buttery mouth taste. To that end also, I added a little sugar to the onions to hasten the caramelization. So I cooked these much longer than the time they suggested. As well, I added the cherries along with the pork back into the skillet. I wanted those to cook down as well. And finally, once I removed the pork at the end, I cooked it an additional 3 to 4 minutes, probably more than what they suggested in order to reduce the sauce down. My husband raved about this recipe. But I guess it’s all personal taste how you like your sauces to be.
Lisa a
Pitts para
7/21/2023
This was easy, impressive and delicious. Will make again. Made as written with sweet frozen cherries. Awesome!
Sue
Des plaines il
12/20/2022
I've made less-flavorful recipes of this dish than this one, but this recipe could be improved as well. Recipes are notoriously safe on salt content and most don't tell you that a thick cut of meat like this needs heavy salting for 6+ hours (refrigerated) before you cook it. Consult Samin Nosrat's SALT FAT ACID HEAT if you have the book. Advance salting tenderizes the meat and allows it to be flavorful throughout. Otherwise you get an exciting, tasty outside with a bland inside, and it's a let down. Second, as someone else noted, the meat will take much longer than it says in the final cook, especially if you have two tenderloins. I had to cover it to speed up the time. Use a thermometer and immediately remove it at 140 degrees and it will be perfectly cooked. As for the sauce, yes, it cooks away. Add Knudsen black cherry juice (tart) to the ingredient list and pour some in when you're making the sauce. You can pretty much add as much as you want and cook it down until it thickens a bit. Everything else in this recipe works great. This combination of flavors produces a winning dish and it's now in our dinner rotation!
Kevin R
Atlanta, GA
9/14/2022
Will make again. No fresh cherries at store so got frozen (10 oz. bag). Pretty easy. Pork very tender. Instant read thermometer recommended. Vinegar plus honey, cherries, pepper flakes and shallots is great combo. Holiday possibility.
David
Dallas, TX
9/4/2022