Olive Pork Tenderloin
Covered in a light, flavorful, buttery sauce, this Olive Pork Tenderloin is an amazing one skillet dinner! Easy enough for a weeknight – takes about 45 minutes total. Unique and elegant enough to serve guests. This dish is a keeper!
My good friend Jennifer served me a version of this Olive Pork Tenderloin many years ago. Before I was married and before I knew how to cook anything AT ALL. At the time, I was traveling for work and visiting her in Orlando, where she lives. She is a fabulous cook and hostess; always has been. When Jennifer first made this dish for me, she was at the stove, quickly throwing this together and I remember thinking, “Do I even like olives? Yikes! Wonder how this is going to go?!” Honestly, I had low expectations, but figured she knew what she was doing. She continued to work her magic in that skillet and put a plate of this in front of me. It was fantastic! The combination of flavors was light, buttery, not too salty, just delicious! Very unexpected.
Later when I got home from the trip, I tried to recreate the dish numerous times to really lackluster results. As an inexperienced cook, I didn’t even really know how or where to start. So major fail there. As my cooking skills improved I tried again and came up with something close, but certainly not as good as hers so I just gave up. Fast forward to today; a few months ago. Tried my hand at it again and so glad I did! Nailed it!
It ended up being quite simple actually. I think where I have made a lot of mistakes in learning how to cook as well as developing my own recipes is overthinking it. Don’t overcomplicate things! When you use quality ingredients, the flavors speak for themselves in the dish. Most of the time you will find that you do not need a large number of ingredients.
Case in point: EJ’s Uncle Sal was a very accomplished, successful chef in Birmingham back in his day. He has passed away now, and we have only a handful of his recipes. The ones we were lucky to inherit through my father-in-law are some of my most treasured recipes. So here’s the thing–these recipes are surprisingly minimal in the number of ingredients. In fact, when I initially read each one of the recipes, I had the same reaction. I looked at the ingredients involved and thought, “Surely this isn’t the ingredient list. I don’t think this is going to work out.” And each time after preparing the dish I was like “OK this is delicious!” Sometimes you just have to trust. I realized, after all, hey, he was the chef…and I am not!
This Olive Pork Tenderloin is a good example of a dish with a few simple ingredients that, when combined, are surprisingly delicious! The slightly salty taste of the olives, the seasonings, and the mildly citrus flavors harmonize well in the buttery sauce cooked with the tenderloin. Serve over vermicelli pasta or white rice, such as my Simply Perfect Oven Rice. A side salad or some steamed broccoli and some crusty bread make it a meal. Enjoy!
Olive Pork Tenderloin
Ingredients
- 1 – 1½ pounds pork tenderloin trimmed
- ¼ -⅓ cup all purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 shallot chopped
- 1/2 cup pitted green olives, sliced into thirds as always, use good quality; I use Sicilian Castelvetrano or Queen olives stuffed with red pepper
- 1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, sliced in half
- 1 ¼ cup chicken broth
- Zest of one lemon, plus squeeze of lemon juice
- 1½ – 2 Tablespoons butter
- fresh Italian parsley, chopped for serving
Seasoning Mix
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon oregano
- 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Instructions
- Combine Seasoning Mix ingredients in a small bowl; set aside. Place the flour in another bowl and set aside as well.
- Take the trimmed pork tenderloin and slice into round medallions about 1/2 inch thick. Lay out flat on a cutting board or piece of parchment paper and generously season both sides with the Seasoning Mix. If you have any mix left, add this to the flour. Now dredge each piece of tenderloin in flour and place back on board or parchment.
- Take a large skillet with a lid; spray with cooking spray if needed and add the olive oil. Heat over medium high heat until hot. Place the tenderloin medallions in the pan when hot and brown on both sides; about 2 minutes per side. If skillet gets too hot, turn heat down to medium when browning the second side. Remove tenderloin from pan after cooking, place on a plate and turn heat off.
- Add shallots to the skillet; the residual heat will soften them up. Stir for a couple of minutes. Add the olives and stir another minute or two to get them heated up a bit.
- Now add the chicken broth and lemon zest/squeeze of juice to the pan and turn back on to medium heat. Stir and scrape any browned bits off of the bottom of the pan. Simmer for 5 minutes, until slightly reduced.
- Return the pork tenderloin medallions back to the pan along with any juices on the plate. Cover partially and cook over medium low heat for 8-10 minutes total. Sauce will thicken up a bit, so add a bit more chicken broth if necessary – sometimes I add 1/4 cup more.
- After 10 minutes, turn heat off, add the butter to the skillet and gently stir into the sauce, until the butter melts. Sprinkle fresh parsley on top and serve over vermicelli pasta. Enjoy!