Slow Cooker Honey Apple Pork Loin with just seven ingredients is a showstopping meal with none of the effort! Perfect for holiday dinners!
Slow-cooker honey Apple Pork Loin seems like it should take a long time to make, but this meal comes together quickly and with hardly any effort!
Are you having a lot of holiday dinners? Do you have family in town, and you’re stressed about how you’re going to survive work, kids, family, and the holidays while playing hostess? THIS is the dinner you’ll love serving. It takes 10 minutes to prep, and five hours later, you have a delicious meal ready and waiting for people to compliment you on.
This post, along with many others throughout the year, is sponsored by Mountain Rose Herbs, whose Cinnamon, Flake Salt, and Black Pepper were used in this meal.
Ten minutes. Most of that is spent slicing apples too. Look at the before and after!
This recipe was based on seeing a stuffed pork loin in a Food Network magazine in the doctor’s office waiting room. Then I did a quick look on Google, and this stuffing the top of the loin idea is huge with both apples and peaches (this is happening next summer for SURE). So we’ve been playing with flavors.
This dish is definitely based on my Lemon Salt Pork Loin recipe and Honeyed Apples (both Michael Chiarello recipes).
I tested all different kinds of onions, from white to yellow and red. I settled on sweet onions so the flavors didn’t fight each other. I also tested browning the loin vs. leaving it raw. But I found that with the fat cap on top of the pork loin, it wasn’t really necessary to brown it because the fat was going to render out over time, and there was no skin to crisp.
Cooking Tips
- I used Granny Smith apples because the tartness cuts through the sweetness of the honey. For a milder flavor, use fuji.
- Build a good base of apples and onions (you can also use baby Yukon potatoes instead of onions). This will keep the pork out of the liquid.
- Don’t overcook this dish. It only needs five hours on LOW; if you cook for any longer, you may end up with dry pork.
- If you want, you can add the honey to the pork after cooking.
- You can make a gravy with the liquid in the slow cooker. Add the strained liquid to a saucepan to a cornstarch slurry (2 teaspoons room temperature water mixed with 2 teaspoons cornstarch) and cook on medium heat until thickened (3-4 minutes).
Want to make this in your oven? Totally doable and easy!
Roasted Honey Apple Pork Loin:
- Season the pork with cinnamon, salt and black pepper.
- Add the apples and onions to a large Dutch pan or baking dish.
- Top with the pork loin.
- Add in the sliced apples.
- Cook at 400 degrees for 55-65 minutes.
Looking for more Pork Dishes?
- Slow Cooker Bacon Garlic Pork Loin
- Brown Sugar Garlic Pork with Carrots & Potatoes
- Brown Sugar Garlic Oven Baked Pork Chops
- Shake and Bake Pork Chops
- Slow Cooker Cuban Mojo Pork


Ingredients
- 4 pound pork loin not tenderloin
- 1/2 teaspoon Flake Salt
- 1/4 teaspoon Coarse Ground Black Pepper
- 1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- 4 Granny Smith apples sliced in ¼ - ½ inch thick slices
- 2 sweet onions sliced
- 1/4 cup honey
Instructions
- Using a small paring knife cut about a dozen apple length slits about three inches deep into the pork.
- Rub the pork loin with the salt, black pepper and cinnamon.
- Reserve just enough apple slices to place into the pork.
- Put the remaining apples and the onion slices into the bottom of the slow cooker.
- Place the reserved apple slices into the pork, one slice per opening.
- Place the pork loin over the apples and onions.
- Cover the pork in honey.
- Cook on low for 5 hours.
- To serve carve the pork into slices, serve with the apples and onions and a couple spoonfuls of the liquid (once you've rendered off the fat).
Hi Sabrina… I know you put this recipe up quite a long time ago! LOL! But I just wanted to say ‘thank you’! It sounds very delicious so I have everything ready to go tomorrow & get this bad boy on the go! However, I’m not really a honey lover (I know when mixed with other ingredients, individual tastes get lost somewhat so it wouldn’t taste very strongly, but…), so I’m going to go with a bit of maple syrup instead. Both my OH and I prefer that. But given the recipe is about apples & cinnamon, I reckon maple syrup with go perfectly. We shall see! 🙂 Anyway – thank you for the recipe! And wishing you & your family well in this New Year! x
Sorry so late in responding Kate. Happy New Year to you and yours too! Maple Syrup sounds yummy by the way!
This recipe is so easy and is amazing!! I highly recommend!! I’d love to add my photos but I don’t see an add button – bummer!!
Glad you enjoyed the recipe Laura! Thanks for the five star review.
Made it and loved it. But it was a bit dry. What can I do to fix that?
My tenderloin weight is 5.76. How would I adjust the cooking time?