Honey garlic pork tenderloin strips
- Preparation 20 min
- Cooking 25 min
- Servings 4
- Freezing I do not suggest
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🐖 A customer dared me to cook this cut
This one started as a dare. A customer challenged me to take a pork tenderloin and do something with it that wasn’t the usual roast-it-whole routine. So I bought two, pulled off the silverskin, cut them into thick slices and then into strips. Strips, because they cook fast and the sauce wraps around every single piece instead of sitting on top of one big roast. The dare turned into a recipe I keep going back to.
🍯 Three things in a bowl, and that’s your sauce
Honey, sriracha, rice vinegar. Whisk them together before the burner is even on. There’s no soy sauce in here, that was just a call I made. The flavour comes from somewhere else: orange zest, grated garlic and grated ginger, all hitting the hot pan together for thirty seconds and no longer. Then the sauce goes in over high heat and you stir it until it runs thick like warm honey. That’s the only cue you need to watch for.
🍚 A weeknight plate, over rice
Twenty minutes of prep, twenty-five of cooking, four servings. I eat this over rice, every time. Sometimes green beans on the side, sometimes udon noodles instead. The sliced green onions go on at the very end and they matter more than they look, because honey is sweet and something raw and sharp has to cut through it. It looks like a lot of work on the plate. It’s one pan and one bowl.
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🔪 Pull the silverskin off before you slice
Every pork tenderloin has a pale, shiny membrane running down one side. It doesn’t melt, it tightens, and it turns your strips chewy. Slide a thin knife under one end, hold the membrane flat with your other hand, and push the blade forward while keeping it almost parallel to the meat. Then cut the tenderloin into thick slices, and each slice into strips. Two minutes of work you will taste.
🍳 Hot pan, and don’t crowd it
The strips need to brown, not steam. Dump both tenderloins in at once and the meat releases its water, the pan temperature crashes, and you end up with grey pork sitting in a puddle. Work in two batches if your skillet is on the small side, 3 to 4 minutes a side, with a fresh splash of oil between rounds.
🍊 Orange zest is doing more work than you think
One tablespoon of zest next to half a cup of honey sounds like nothing. It’s the reason the sauce doesn’t just taste like sugar. The oil in the peel releases the second it hits the hot pan, alongside the garlic and ginger. Thirty seconds and no more, because past that the garlic scorches and everything turns bitter.
🧄 Grate the garlic and ginger instead of mincing them
Five cloves of garlic and two tablespoons of ginger is a lot of knife work. A fine rasp grater handles it in half a minute. Grated garlic dissolves into the sauce and flavours the whole pan. Minced garlic stays in little cubes that catch on the bottom and burn while the sauce reduces. Ginger behaves the same way, only stringier.
🍯 Thick like warm honey, that’s your only cue
Over high heat, stir the sauce without stopping for 2 to 3 minutes. You’re not watching a timer, you’re watching a texture. It should fall off the spoon in a slow ribbon, the way honey does after a few seconds in a warm spot. Too thin and it slides right off the pork. Too far and it turns into candy that welds itself to your teeth.
🔄 The pork comes out, the sauce reduces, the pork goes back
The strips rest on a plate while the sauce builds in the pan. They go back in for a final 3 to 4 minutes, long enough for the sauce to tighten a little more and coat every piece. Pour in whatever juice collected on the plate too. That’s flavour, not waste.
📅 Get ahead of it, and reheat it gently
You can do almost everything the day before: cut the strips, whisk the honey, sriracha and rice vinegar together, grate the garlic, ginger and zest. Keep them in separate containers in the fridge and all that’s left is the pan. Leftovers reheat in a skillet or an air fryer on low. Crank the heat and the honey burns before the pork is even warm.
✅ What to serve with honey garlic pork tenderloin
Rice, first and always, because that’s how I eat it. If you want the whole meal in one bowl, my chicken and vegetables fried rice carries it on its own. For crunch and something green next to all that honey, go with Thai-style sautéed green beans. And on nights when rice feels wrong, I make pork yaki udon instead.
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Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) honey
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) sriracha
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) rice vinegar
- 2 large pork tenderloins (1 3/4 lb / 800 g), cut into thick slices and then into strips
- Vegetable oil for cooking
- 5 cloves of grated garlic
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) orange zest
- 2 tablespoons (30 ml) grated ginger
- 2 sliced green onions for serving
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Preparation
- In a bowl, mix together the honey, sriracha, and rice vinegar.
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat up some vegetable oil.
- Add the pork strips and brown on each side for 3-4 minutes. Generously salt and pepper and set aside on a plate. Add more oil as needed.
- Lower the heat to medium and add a little more vegetable oil.
- Add the garlic, ginger, and orange zest and cook for 30 seconds, stirring.
- Increase the heat to high and add the sauce. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes until it is thick like hot honey.
- Add the pork and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring, to thicken the sauce and coat the pork well.
- Serve over rice and top with green onions.
In a skillet, not the oven. Cut the tenderloin into strips, sear them over medium-high heat in vegetable oil for 3 to 4 minutes a side, then set them aside on a plate. Build the sauce in the same pan, reduce it over high heat until it runs thick, and return the pork for a final 3 to 4 minutes so every strip gets coated. The whole thing takes about twenty-five minutes. The one mistake that ruins it is crowding the pan, which steams the pork grey instead of browning it.
Nine, and you likely have most of them. Half a cup of honey, a tablespoon of sriracha and a tablespoon of rice vinegar make the sauce. Then two large pork tenderloins, vegetable oil, five cloves of grated garlic, a tablespoon of orange zest, two tablespoons of grated ginger, and two sliced green onions for the top. No soy sauce in this one, that was a deliberate choice. The orange zest is what keeps the honey from tasting flat.
It’s the best one for this. Tenderloin is the leanest, most tender muscle on the pig, and cut into strips it cooks through in minutes without drying out. You need two large ones, roughly 1 3/4 lb (800 g) together, for four servings. Don’t substitute pork loin, which people confuse with tenderloin at the counter: loin is a much wider, tougher roast and it turns dry and stringy in a fast sear like this one.
Most of it, yes. The night before, cut the strips, whisk the honey, sriracha and rice vinegar together, and grate the garlic, ginger and orange zest. Store them separately in the fridge and dinner becomes a twenty-five minute job. Cooked leftovers keep three days covered in the fridge. Reheat them in a skillet or an air fryer on low heat, never high, because honey scorches long before the pork is warm through. Freezing isn’t worth it here, the sauce breaks and the pork goes rubbery.
Rice is the default, and it’s what I actually put on the plate. For a version that stands on its own, my chicken and vegetables fried rice works. If you want something crisp and green to push back against the honey, make Thai-style sautéed green beans. And when noodles sound better than rice, pork yaki udon is the swap I go for.
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