Stumped On What To Serve With Your Smoked Pork Main Dish? Here Are Some Ideas

By Author: Linda Williams
Total Articles: 6
Comment this article

If you’re a pork lover and decide to go out and purchase a delicious smoked pork tenderloin or maybe some thick cut chops, your only decision now is what to serve with it. Because pork comes in so many cuts – from tenderloin with just three and a half grams of fat to spareribs with 20 to 25 grams – you have a lot of flexibility with side dishes to maintain the total fat and calories you want with your meal.

A lot of people love traditional meat and potatoes dinners. For them, smoked pork is great with mashed potatoes, perhaps covered in gravy made from the meat drippings and flour and milk.

Another favorite side with smoked pork is spatzle, an egg noodle dish that is popular in many parts of eastern Europe. Spatzle can be topped with virtually any ingredients you want. Particularly good with a pork meal is spatzle mixed with grated cheese and fried onions.

Rice pilaf, like potatoes, is a starchy dish but many people feel that it’s lighter in the stomach than potatoes and prefer to eat it with heavier cuts of pork like spareribs and pork rib roast.

...
... /p>

There are traditions that call for beets or applesauce to go on the side of a smoked pork meal. Though the two food items have very different flavors and textures, each compliments pork in an almost magical way.

When choosing a green vegetable, take into consideration the type of pork you’re having as the main dish. If your pork is relatively low in fat like a loin top roast, a more perky green such as seasoned spinach or collards works well. For heavy pork like a shoulder blade steak, try blander choices such as green beans or broccoli.

Sweet potatoes with a little bit of cranberry sauce on the side make a great pork compliment. You can do the sweet potatoes mashed, but consider baking with the skin on and then eating the skin for the highest nutrition.

Another way to serve regular potatoes with a pork meal is to make German potato pancakes. This side dish is often quite spicy and flavorful, so you’ll probably have a more balanced meal by serving it with a lower-fat, lower-calorie pork cut.

In summary, these were just a few ideas of different side dishes you can serve with a smoked pork meal. With some experimenting, you’ll come up with all kinds of unique flavor combination that will make whatever cut of pork you enjoy that much better. Finally – remember, when cooking pork, to always cook fully. Most packaging has instructions, and you can also find safe cooking guidelines online.

Linda Williams is a freelance writer interested in smoked foods, an online retailer of smoked pork ribs and other fine meats. Learn more at SmokedFoods.com.