This recipe for the Best Damn Air Fryer Pork Chops is so juicy, tender and delicious, it’s sure to quickly become a favorite air fryer recipe. With a few simple ingredients, and only 12 minutes cook time, these air fryer pork chops are perfect for a tasty dinner any day of the week.
Let me start my saying how much i’m loving my air fryer. I’ve owned a lot of kitchen gadgets over the years and my two favorites are my air fryer and my Instant Pot. And honestly, not far behind is my George Foreman Grill – but that’s a discussion for another day. The thing about an air fryer, is that, well, you’re not really frying in the traditional sense. It’s honestly more like a rapid cook oven/broiler. And there’s plenty of times I don’t want to heat up the house by turning on the regular oven. Besides, for this pork chop recipe I get the best results in the air fryer anyways!
What are the best pork chops for the air fryer?
I’ve found that the very best pork chops for the air fryer are thick, center cut, bone-in chops. I try to get them as thick as possible – somewhere between 1 ½ inches to 2 inches thick. The reason I like the thick chops the best is that with the cooking time required, it’s gives the pork chops a beautiful char on all sides. Thin pork chops will cook too quickly and never get that nice char on them. Thick pork chops require a cooking time of about 12 minutes. And with our rub from this recipe, we get that beautiful char on them that’s delicious!
Make a rub for air fryer pork chops
For this recipe for air fryer pork chops, we will not be breading the pork chops. Rather, we will be making a rub seasoning mix which we are going to very liberally apply to the meat. The rub is very simple too. We’ll use brown sugar, paprika, ground mustard, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. We mix it together and rub it all in to pork chops that have been rinsed, dried, and coated with a little olive oil. Rinsing the pork chops and patting them dry with a paper towel is important so don’t skip that step.
Preheat your air fryer
Preheating your air fryer is an important step! You’ll want to preheat at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Then when it’s ready, cook the pork chops in the air fryer for 12 minutes, flipping them over after 6 minutes.
When the pork chops are done, remove them from the air fryer and place them on a plate and let them rest for a couple of minutes. Then you’re ready to serve and enjoy! There will be a nice juice that will form from the seasonings and the natural juices of the pork. Slice the pork chops in thin slices, and get some of the seasoned juice on each bite. You’re gonna love it!
Recipe

Best Damn Air Fryer Pork Chops
- Total Time: 17 minutes
- Yield: 2
Description
Juicy, tender and delicious air fryer pork chops.
Ingredients
- 2 center-cut, bone-in pork chops, 1 ½ – 2 inches thick
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground mustard
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1–2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat air fryer to 400 degrees for 5 minutes
- Rinse pork chops with cool water and pat dry completely with a paper towel.
- In a small bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
- Coat the pork chops with olive oil and rub in the mix. Rub it in well and liberally. Use almost all of the rub mix for the 2 pork chops.
- Cook pork chops in air fryer at 400 degrees for 12 minutes, flipping pork chops over after 6 minutes.
- Prep Time: 5 min
- Cook Time: 12 min
- Category: Pork chops
- Method: air fryer
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: air fryer, pork chops
Lana Wilson
YES! THE BEST DAMN CHOPS EVER! Moist and so tasty. I followed Jason’s recipe exactly in my “scary new air fryer”!
Kellie
I made this for dinner tonight, and it was delicious!
Jeanne
So good! Juicy pork chops, and I’d make them again. I omitted the ground mustard since I did not have any. It didn’t affect the flavor in my opinion. Easy recipe too.
★★★★★
Barb
I subbed 1 Tbs of Dijon mustard. It worked very well.
Brian
Appropriately named. Excellent flavor.
★★★★★
Barb
I subbed a Tbs of Dijon mustard. It worked very well.
Melissa Hinchliffe
perfect
★★★★★
Mel Blanks
I made these exactly as directed and they turned out perfect! Moist, tender and very flavorful. The combination of sugar and spice was spot on! This will be a go to recipe for me moving forward.
★★★★★
Ed
This came out very good and moist. I am not sure where your time of 12 minutes came from. We did a 2 1/8 inch pork chop and it took somewhere between 18 – 20 minutes for it to reach 143-145 (it got past me a little, as it went quick at the end). It was just at the tail end of pink at that point.
Suanne sockwell
these are by far the best chops EVER! Try them and you will not be disappointed. Hubby grills and smokes on green egg, pitboss, and oil less fryer but these take the cake! I do agree with others ~~used only a fraction of the sugar. You will not be disappointed!
Ronane
I made this last week and they were fantastic! I cut back on the cooking time a bit because I had thin chops (about half an inch thick) and I used about half the amount of sugar, but we loved them and will be doing them again soon. Definitely a winner!
★★★★★
DIANA DAVISON
Tender, delicious and mouth watering. Before I found this recipe, my pork chops were always tough. I gave up even making pork chops until I tried this. Now this is the only recipe I use, and it is perfect every time.
★★★★★