Stuffed Pork Roast with Pears, Bacon, & Onions
I am so in love with this delicious dish! Pork loin butterflied & then rolled with a sourdough stuffing complete with fresh pears, crispy bacon, & savory garlic & onion – guaranteed to make your tastebuds dance. This is one recipe that’s going to be hard to beat this holiday season!
This post is part of a sponsored week long event, #MerryEats & sponsored by Rainier Fruit.  All opinions and words are 100% mine, as always.
The best thing about being a food blogger is being able to celebrate food holidays with the appropriate food. Today is World Pear Day so can you guess what ingredient is featured in today’s recipe? I’ll give you one guess… 😉
PEARS
I think that pears & pork may be my new favorite flavor combination. I’ve seen recipes that married the two flavors together, but I’ve never made or eaten the combo before. That was before a big box of Rainier Pears showed up at my doorstep for the #MerryEats event. Then, I was in pear heaven & I wanted to get a little more creative with my method of using them.
Usually when I have fresh pears on hand, I go for just eating them straight (YUM!) or making some sort of dessert out of them. So this go-round, I wanted to go a more savory approach with them. And since it’s the holidays, a main dish perfect for the holiday table seemed to be in order.
What a wonderful decision that ended up being. The texture of pears makes them perfect for poaching because they hold their flavor while still absorbing the flavors of the liquids hanging out with them so I was pretty confident that using them in this dish was going to work out pretty well.
When picking pears for this recipe (or just pears in general), the key is ‘Check the Neck’. If you’re going to be using the pear right away, gently press your finger into the top of the pear just where the stem connects to the fruit. If it just starts to give, the pear is ripe. Pears that are soft elsewhere are overripe and the fruit will be mushy. If you’re going to be using the pear in a few days, choose one that is hard at the top. Store at room temp & they will ripen in a few days. If you need to speed up the ripening process, place your pears in a paper bag with a ripe banana or apple.
(I used Green Anjou Pears from Rainier Pears in this recipe , but they actually grows nine different varieties of pears: Asian pears, Bartlett, Bosc, Comice, Forelle, Green Anjou, Red Bartlett, Seckel, and Taylor’s Gold.)
The stuffing that is stuffed inside this pork roast is probably the best stuffing I’ve ever eaten, and I don’t say that lightly at all. Stuffing and I… well we go way back. Kind of kindred spirits, as much as kindred spirits as a woman and a pan of stuffing can be.
This decadent sourdough stuffing is complete with sauteed pears, garlic, onion, & bacon. Yes, bacon too. Trust me on this. The slight sweetness of the pears pairs (hehe, pears pairs) so beautifully with the saltiness of the pork & bacon. And the garlic & onion? Well, I can’t tell you exactly why it works… but it does. Just thinking of it makes my mouth begin to water.
The stuffing not only gets rolled inside of a butterflied pork roast but then the other half of it sits around the pork roast while it’s baking and absorbs all those awesome juices & forms a beautiful crust atop.
Butterflying a pork roast is not at all as intimidating as it sounds either. You slice it with a knife and open it up just like a book. Then, the sides you just opened up – you slice them with a sharp knife and open it up again. YouTube has all sorts of great videos if you’re more of a ‘I need to see it’ kind of person.
I totally couldn’t stopped picking the stuffing from around the pork roast from the second it came out of the oven. Don’t look too close – you might see some missing areas. 😉 I just couldn’t help myself! I could eat a whole pan of that pear stuffing just on it’s own.
Scroll down to below the recipe for the #MerryEats giveaway worth $500!!
Stuffed Pork Roast w/ Pears, Bacon, & Onion
Ingredients
- 4-5 pound pork loin butterflied
- 12 oz bacon
- 2 medium onions diced
- 2 stalks celery with leafy ends minced
- 4 medium to large Rainier pears peeled, cored, & diced
- 4 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
- 4-5 cloves garlic minced
- 10 cups chopped toasted sourdough bread about one loaf from the bakery or bread aisle & just toast in the toaster
- salt & pepper to taste
- 2.5 cups chicken broth
- barbecue seasoning optional to taste
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large skillet, cook the bacon strips until crisp. Drain on a paper towel, then crumble & set aside. Discard some of the bacon grease leaving about 3-4 tablespoons worth of bacon grease in the pan. Saute the onion & celery in the grease for 5 minutes. Add the pears & cook for another 5 minutes. Stir in the minced garlic & rosemary; salt & pepper to taste. Remove from the heat.
- In a large bowl, combine the toasted sourdough bread cubes, crumbled bacon, & the pear/onion mixture. Mix in the chicken broth. Season the inside of the butterflied pork roast with salt & pepper. Spread half of the mixture on the inside of the butterflied pork roast, leaving a 1" rim around the edge uncoated. Starting from the long side, roll the pork loin up. Use cooking twine to secure.
- Place the pork roast in a large baking dish or roasting pan. Sprinkle the top of the pork roast with your favorite bbq seasoning if desired. Spread the remaining stuffing around the pork roast. Cover with aluminum foil & bake for 1 hour. Remove the foil & cook for an additional 30 minutes or until a thermometer inserted into the pork reaches 145 degrees.
