How Canned Soup Turns Crock-Pot Pork Chops Into The Dinner Of Your Dreams

As you may already know, your Crock-Pot is perfect for producing juicy, tender pork chops because low and slow is the way to go for this finicky, lean cut of meat. Treated incorrectly, pork chops become tough and leathery. However, after several hours in your slow cooker with the right ratios of fat, liquid, and seasonings, they become tender, flavorful, and beautifully juicy. No region in the United States knows this better than Appalachia, which is why Crock-Pot pork and beans are a staple of this rural, hearty cuisine.

Cubed bacon and canned or soaked dry beans are traditional to this dish, but the equally delicious shortcut method involves adding a can or so of Campbell's Bean with Bacon condensed soup. Condensed soups are the perfect convenience food for creating saucy, tasty slow cooker meals because they gently cook down into a silky gravy that mingles with the other flavors. Campbell's Bean with Bacon is particularly good with pork since the beans add a velvety texture while the bacon and other seasonings in the soup add smoky, flavorful richness.

The method for this dish is also so simple that it can barely be called a recipe. You just need about one can per 1 pound of pork. The chops go on the bottom of the Crock-Pot, the soup goes on top, and in about eight hours, you have a pot of savory pork and beans that's good enough to put in your weekly rotation.

Though this meal is perfectly delicious with boneless chops and the soup alone, there are a few easy ways to take this simple weeknight dinner up a few notches. The first is to go for bone-in chops since the bone contains marrow that adds a ton of flavor and collagen, making the finished dish taste meatier and richer. 

Something else you can do is mix and match soups. Instead of several cans of Campbell's Bean with Bacon, use a can of cream of mushroom soup to give slow cooker pork chops some flair. Mushrooms work beautifully with bacon, beans, and pork chops, adding both texture and earthiness to the finished dish. You might also swap in a can of condensed cream of chicken soup and add a packet of onion soup mix to your slow cooker pork chops for a lighter, tangy flavor that melds perfectly with the beans with bacon soup to create a flavor profile reminiscent of a BLT (especially since the soup contains tomato paste).

For a Tex-Mex version, swap one can of beans with bacon for a can of cheddar cheese soup, along with a small tin of chilis in adobo or Ro-Tel canned tomatoes and diced chiles. An additional can of navy beans or black beans is also tasty, and creates the perfect topping for cilantro lime rice.