Grilled Gochujang Pork Chops with Watermelon Mint Salad

Name: Grilled Gochujang Pork Chops with Watermelon Mint Salad
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 25 min
Cuisine: Korean
Ingredients: 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar; 2 tablespoons gochujang (gluten-free if needed, homemade for paleo); 1 tablespoon each: honey, oil, and soy sauce (gluten-free if needed, coco aminos for paleo); 4 pork chops; 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar; 1/2 tablespoon each: honey and oil; A generous pinch of sea salt; 3 cups diced watermelon; 2 tablespoons each: chopped mint, chopped cilantro, and feta cheese (see notes)

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Gluten Free Paleo

Grilled Gochujang Pork Chops are a delicious and healthy summer BBQ recipe. They are marinated in a sweet and spicy Korean chili paste then grilled to perfection. Serve them with a side of rice (or cauliflower rice!) and a simple mint watermelon salad for an easy and healthy dinner recipe.

Friends! This recipe is screaming summer all over the place. I mean HELLO, there's watermelon! Sweet, juicy, delicious watermelon. Does anything say summer more than watermelon juice running down your hands? ?

Before I tell you about these aaaamazing Gochujang Pork Chops I have to tell you what happened after dinner last night. When we got up from the table I gave my little girl one of those slices of watermelon you see in the pic below.? While we washed dishes, she sat in her highchair being super quiet and totally unlike herself. When she finally started babbling again I went to get her and the ENTIRE piece of watermelon I have her was gone. She ate the whole freaking piece! Like, ALL of it.

Even though I've read pickled watermelon rind recipes I still had to ask Google in a bit of a panic if she had eaten something poisonous. I'm mean really, who the heck eats a watermelon rind? Ha!

It's like she thought she was starving and hadn't just eaten half of one of those pork chops.

Anyway, back to these Gochujang Pork Chops …

These babies are marinated in a sweet and spicy Korean chili sauce called gochujang. You might have guessed that by the title of the recipe.

Have you tried it before? It's shown up around here a few times. There were those Sweet Korean Paleo Chicken Thighs, the Crock Pot Korean Gochujang Pork, the Gochujang Pulled Pork Korean Pizza, and it even showed up in the Skinny Bang Bang Cauliflower.

Honestly, it's one of my favorite seasonings. It's got this smoky/ sweet/ spicy thing going on and is super flavorful. Even though it's a chili paste, it's not overly spicy so you can use quite a bit of it. In this recipe, I've used 2 tablespoons, which give the pork chops a tiny bit of heat and a lot of flavor.

After the marinade flavors the pork, you're going to boil it for 2-3 minutes to turn it into a Korean BBQ sauce. You'll take that tasty sauce and pour it all over your rice and love your life with each bite you take.

The spicy Korean BBQ sauce covered rice + the cool watermelon salad is just about the best combo ever.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that this is the VERY FIRST watermelon recipe on the blog. Can you believe it? Seriously, what the heck is wrong with me?

I promise I'll change that this summer!

It might seem like a bit of an oddball combination to serve meat with watermelon salad, but it totally works. The sweet watermelon helps to cool the spice in the pork chops and goes so well with the smoky grilled flavor. It's summertime on a plate.