Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops

Two-inch-thick pork chops, carved off an entire pork loin and then carved to create a pocket in the middle of the chops. Cream cheese, smoked gouda, bacon, jarlic, chives, and parsley are blended together and piped into the pockets in the pork chops like icing. After seasoning with salt and your favorite BBQ seasoning the stuffed pork chops are smoked for about 30 minutes and then seared to perfection with all that savory, gooey, cheesy deliciousness inside.

Pork, is such an amazing and inexpensive way to feed the fam some fantastic protein. If you are looking for some similar options, here are a few of our favorite pork chop and general pork recipes:

• Pork Chops smothered in a mushroom, butter, garlic and brie sauce
• Caramel apple stuffed pork chops, perfect for that Fall cookout
• Tomahawk Pork Chops, which are epic, but will indeed require a special order
• Santa Maria Pork Steaks

Also, this recipe is not my own. My friend James Boatright created this one and came over to my place to cook it with me:

The dude is a top notch pitmaster, was featured on the Netflix BBQ Showdown Season 1. He’s lives near me in the St. Louis area. We have done quite a few recipes together including those pork steaks in the picture above as well as this Rotisserie Pork Loin recipe and these Blowtorch Baby Back Ribs. I’ve actually got one more that we did together that I’m still working on. 

Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops Ingredients:

• 4 boneless pork chops, two inches thick
• 6 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped
• 8 ounces of smoked gouda, shredded
• 2 tablespoons of jarlic (jarred garlic)
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons of fresh chives, chopped
• 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, chopped
• Salt
• Your favorite BBQ seasoning, we used the Mudville BBQ Prime Sweet BBQ Seasoning
• 1 resealable plastic bag, gallon size

The recipe calls for 4 chops, but we only cooked 3. There is enough stuffing in this for 4, and maybe even 5.

Set the cream cheese out on the counter and allow to warm up a bit. It will make this easier later.

Some of you are going to balk at the whole 2 inch thick pork chops. Not a lot of butchers sell those. Special ordering pork chops is a hassle. 

The best option I have for you is to do the butchering yourself and save some cheddar. That’s what I did, and it’s super easy. I bought this entire pork loin for $21ish and carved my own pork chops:

From that one pork loin, I got my three fat pork chops for this recipe (the recipe calls for 4), and three sets of pork chops numbering 4 each and about an inch thick plus one extra chop. For a family of four, that’s four meals for $21. 

For my family of six, I could get 3 meals out of this, but at $7 for the protein for a family meal, that’s really reasonable. 

Bone-In or Boneless Pork Chops?

You can go with a bone in pork chop, as we did here with these apple stuffed pork chops, for this recipe, but it’s a lot more work to trim out a bone-in pork loin. Bone in chops are a little easier to carve the pocket for the stuffing as you can take the knife all the way to the bone without risking cutting though the side of the chop. That can happen with boneless pork chops. 

Carve a Pocket in the Pock Chops:

Take a narrow, sharp knife and insert it into the side of the pork chop and carve out a pocket to the side of the chop the sharp side of the blade is facing. Then flip the knife over and expand the pocket on the other side of the chop.

For this, James will demonstrate:

Work that blade to one side:

Make sure not to poke through on the other side. It’s hard enough to keep the cheese stuffing inside the chop.

Flip the knife over and work it the other way to get a nice big, pocket:

Check it out:

Let’s get to preparing the pork chops. Here are the rest of the ingredients:

Create the Stuffing for our Stuffed Pork Chops

In a mixing bowl, drop in the cream cheese, cooked/chopped bacon, chives

Shredded gouda and chopped parsley:

Then mix everything together. You can use a spoon or fork, but I actually recommend a couple of these nitrile gloves and get your gloves dirty:

Drop that ball of deliciousness into a resealable plastic bag:

Then, cut the corner off the bag to make a pastry piping bag:

Pipe the stuffing into each of the pork chops:

Here’s a thick, stuffed pork chop compared to a standard 1 inch thick pork chop:

Season each side of the stuffed chops with salt and your favorite BBQ Seasoning:

We used the Mudville BBQ Prime Sweet BBQ Seasoning:

Prepare the grill for two zone grilling with coals on one side and the meat on the other. In this case, I sparked up my Primo Oval XL which is a kamado grill. Did I mention the cook surface is immense and the grill is made in America.

The meat goes on the side with no direct heat and the smoke wood goes on the hot coals:

We used hickory wood for this cook.

How to Make Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops

Cut a pocket in the side of the pork chops and set aside. Combine the cream cheese, bacon, gouda, chives, jarlic, and parsley in a bowl and mix well. Place the stuffing into a resealable plastic bag and cut one corner off to make a piping bag. Pipe the stuffing into each chop. Season the outside with salt and BBQ seasoning. Cook indirect at 275F (+/-25F) until the chops reach an internal temperature of 140F (About 35-40 minutes). Bring the hot side of the grill up to 500F+ and sear both sides of pork. Remove from the cooker, allow to rest for 5 minutes, slice and serve.

Target temp inside the grill is 275F (+/- 25F):

Short Cook

This cook does not take long. Pork loin, and thus pock chops, has fairly low fat content which means these chops will come up to temp in fairly short order. 

Particularly with the chop almost being divided in two when the pocket was created. Instead of one thick chop cooking, we have, essentially, two thinner chops that need to cook sandwiching some cheese, bacon and herb stuffing. The stuffing simply needs to warm up. 

Thus at about 35 minutes, our chops were ready to sear as our Temp Tongs show us with the internal temp of the pork at 140F:

Pro Tip ~ When temping stuffed chops, make sure the tip of the thermometer is in the middle of the meat, and not the stuffing. The stuffing temp will spike a lot earlier than the pork will.

Time to Sear

We now need a hotter fire than we had to smoke the chops. So stoke up the coals however you can. The easiest way is just open the lid and give the hot coals all the air they want.

While waiting for the grill to come up to temp, I suggest a re-application of the seasoning:

Also, don’t sweat if a little of the stuffing oozes out:

Once the temps on the hot side are north of 500F, sear off the chops:

All we need is a little char on each side to bring these stuffed chops up to 145F which is all the USDA requires to make pork chops safe to eat:

Once we have char on both sides and our internal temps above 145F, we can plate the protein:

Give these bad boys a few minutes to rest otherwise, when you slice into them, the cheese will ooze out all over the plate.

While the chops rest, may I suggest another dusting of seasoning since a lot has melted into the meat or is scraped off when flipping the meat:

Just a dusting:

Before the chops are fully rested, that seasoning melted into the meat:

After a few minutes to rest, slice:

Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops Summary:

Smoky, sweet, savory, cheesy, meaty, bacony (if it’s not a word it should be), juicy and all for not a lot of money. And while this recipe is phenomenal as it is, feel free to use it as a blue print for whatever ingredients you have access to or prefer. I could absolutely add some shallots or thyme. Maybe use a goat cheese instead of the gouda. Lots of options. I really enjoyed this. Scroll down below the recipe card to see some more pics as well as James and I chowing on these chops.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

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Recipe Card:

Print Recipe

Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops

Thick pork chops, stuffed with cream cheese, smoked gouda, bacon, garlic and herbs and then smoked for these grilled stuffed pork chops

Course: Entree, Main Course, Pork Chops

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Barbecue, BBQ, Pork Chops

Keyword: Bacon, BBQ Rub, BBQ Seasoning, Black Garlic, Bone In Pork Loin, Chives, Chops, Cream Cheese, Fresh Chives, Fresh Parsley, Gouda, Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops, Jarlic, Jarred Garlic, Mudville, Mudville BBQ, Parsley, Pork Chops, Prime Sweet, Smoked Gouda, Stuffed Pork Chops

Equipment

• 1 Resealable plastic bag

Ingredients

• 4 Pork chops, 2 inches thick
• 6 slices Bacon, cooked and chopped
• 8 ounces Smoked gouda, shredded
• 2 tablespoons Jarlic (Jarred Garlic)
• 8 ounces Cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons Fresh chives, chopped
• 2 tablespoons Fresh parsley
• Salt
• Your favorite BBQ seasoning Mudville BBQ Prime Sweet seasoning

Instructions

• Cut a pocket in the side of the thick chops and set them aside
• In a mixing bowl, add the cream cheese, gouda, bacon, chives, jarlic, and parsley. Blend together until mixed completely. Place the stuffing into a resealable plastic bag and cut the corner.
• Pipe the stuffing out of the plastic bag into the pocket in the side of the pork chops. Then season the tops and bottoms of the chops with salt and your favorite BBQ seasoning
• Prepare the grill by setting it up for two zone grilling. That means coals and smoke wood on one side and the pork chops on the other side. Target temperature inside the grill is 275F (+/-25F)
• Place the stuffed chops on the side of the grill with no direct heat and close the lid to let the heat and smoke work their magic.
• Once the chops reach 140F internal, about 35-40 minutes in, crank up the heat on the hot side and get a quick sear on both sides of the chops to take them north of 145F.
• Remove from the grill and allow the chops to rest for at least 5 minutes and then slice and serve.

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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BBQ Grilling

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This article was initially published on: October 8, 2024