Baked Pesto Pork Chops with Pasta Recipe – One of My Favorite Lazy Meals

Believe it or not, I’d never even tried pesto until I was an adult. My mother-in-law fixed a recipe that included it one night for dinner and I was instantly hooked.

Pesto has so much GREAT flavor!

Every since that I have looked for ways to use it in recipes. This recipe is one I came up with on a whim one day and, to my delight, not only did my husband and I enjoy it, my kids loved it too!

I’ve been making this recipe for well over 5 years now and it’s SO easy to make (plus pretty affordable too!) that I figured I should share the recipe on here for all of you.

You only need 3 ingredients and a few minutes of prep time. When I am feeling lazy or rushed to fix dinner, this is one of my go-to meals.

How to Make Pesto Pork Chops with Pasta

Ingredients

• 14 ounces of pesto sauce
• 1 box of shaped pasta (16 ounces)
• 1 package of pork chops

Ingredient Notes

Pesto: The amount of pesto sauce does not need to be precise. For the photos, and this time when I made the recipe, I used (2) 7-ounce containers. Your favorite pesto brand may come in a different size, just try to get somewhere around that much.

More is better than less for the best flavor. I also prefer the fresh pesto sauce you can get in the deli but you can use the canned version if needed.

Pasta: You can use whatever shaped pasta you prefer. We tend to use penne pasta or cavattapi. I’ve also used shells and ziti before.

Pork Chops: You can use bone-in or boneless pork chops. I just buy whichever is on sale at the time.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Lay the pork chops in a 9×13 baking dish.
3. Spread pesto sauce generously over pork chops.
4. Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven.
5. For bone-in pork chops, check them after 30 minutes. For boneless pork chops, check them after 20 minutes. Pork chops should reach a temperature of 145.
6. While pork chops are in the oven, cook your pasta according to box directions.
7. When the pork chops and pasta are both cooked remove the pork chops from the pan to a clean cutting board.
8. Add the cooked pasta noodles to the pan that you used to cook the pork chops. There should be plenty of juice and sauce to coat the pasta.
9. Return the pork chops to the pan with the pasta and serve immediately.

Directions Notes

No need to grease the pan. Lay the pork chops as flat as possible, but if they need to overlap that’s okay. Do not cut the fat off of them ahead of time or debone them.

When you remove the pork chops from the oven, let them rest at least 3 minutes before cutting into them.

After my pork chops come out of the oven I go ahead and cut all of the fat off of them and debone them if they had bones. I have a number of small kids and so doing that ahead of time means my husband and I don’t have to cut a bunch of meat at the dinner table.

If your children are older or you are only serving adults feel free to make them do the cutting.

For a change up to this recipe, you could swap out the pasta for rice.

Cost to Make This Recipe

Like most families, our grocery costs have really shot up lately. I am trying to buy more and more items on sale and make meals that are cheaper.

Keep in mind, I served this recipe to my entire family of 9. Many of my children are small however and so their portions aren’t huge.

I would estimate that this recipe could easily feed 6 adults. We had leftovers which is great because my kids enjoy eating them the following day for lunch.

That means our family is getting 2 meals from this recipe.

I purchased the pesto sauce on sale (buy one, get one free) at a cost of $5.49. The box of pasta was $1.00. The pork chops were on sale for just $6.05 meaning the grand total for this recipe was just $12.54 (plus tax).

Printable Recipe Card

Don’t forget to print the recipe so you have it for later!

Baked Pesto Prok Chops with Pasta

You only need 3 ingredients and a few minutes of prep time to make this baked pesto pork chops and pasta recipe. When I am feeling lazy or rushed to fix dinner, this is one of my go-to meals.

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Course: Recipes

Cuisine: American

Keyword: dinner, lazy meal, pasta, pesto, pork, pork chops, weeknight meal

Prep Time: 2 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 32 minutes minutes

Servings: 6 servings

Calories: 364kcal

Author: Janessa Solem

Ingredients

• 14 ounces of pesto sauce
• 1 box of shaped pasta 16 ounces
• 1 package of pork chops

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Lay the pork chops in a 9×13 baking dish.
• Spread pesto sauce generously over pork chops.
• Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven. For bone-in pork chops, check them after 30 minutes. For boneless pork chops, check them after 20 minutes. Pork chops should reach a temperature of 145.
• While pork chops are in the oven, cook your pasta according to box directions.
• When the pork chops and pasta are both cooked remove the pork chops from the pan to a clean cutting board.
• Add the cooked pasta noodles to the pan that you used to cook the pork chops. There should be plenty of juice and sauce to coat the pasta.
• Return the pork chops to the pan with the pasta and serve immediately.

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 364kcal | Carbohydrates: 13g | Protein: 14g | Fat: 28g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 21g | Cholesterol: 22mg | Sodium: 413mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 4g