10 Crockpot Pork Tenderloin Dinners

These crockpot pork tenderloin dinners are proof that the lean cut everyone overcooks does fine in a slow cooker, as long as you don’t leave it all day.

From pork tenderloin with gravy over mashed potatoes to a sticky teriyaki one and a cranberry orange version I make every holiday, they all take a bit of sauce and a few hours on low.

Here are the ten I keep coming back to!

Pork tenderloin is not a pork roast, and that’s the thing to know before you start.

It’s small, it’s lean, and it’s done in about three hours, so these are afternoon recipes, not leave-for-work ones, and I’ve said so where the timing matters.

1. Pork Tenderloin with Gravy

Sunday dinner with almost no work, and it’s the recipe I’d hand to someone who’s never cooked a tenderloin.

The pork goes in on top of onion soup mix, cream of mushroom, and a little broth, and the gravy makes itself underneath it.

Three hours on low and it slices clean, and the gravy gets whisked smooth and poured over everything.

Mashed potatoes, green beans, and a quiet evening.

2. Honey Soy Pork Tenderloin

Sweet, salty, and sticky, and it’s what I make when I want something that tastes like takeout without the takeout.

Honey, soy sauce, garlic, and a little ginger go over the pork and reduce down as it cooks.

Spoon the sauce back over the slices, and put it on rice with steamed broccoli!

The leftovers, sliced thin and cold, make a good sandwich.

3. Balsamic Pork Tenderloin

Balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, and rosemary cook down into a glaze that’s tangy first and sweet second.

It looks like a lot more effort than it was, which is my favorite quality in a dinner.

I reduce the cooking liquid in a saucepan for five minutes at the end so it coats the pork, and that’s the only extra step.

Roasted potatoes or a pile of buttered noodles on the side.

4. Ranch Pork Tenderloin and Potatoes

The whole dinner in one crock, potatoes included.

Baby potatoes go on the bottom, the tenderloin goes on top with a packet of ranch seasoning and a few pats of butter, and the potatoes cook in the pork juices.

Cut the potatoes small, or they’ll still be firm when the pork is done, because the pork doesn’t wait.

A green salad, and that’s dinner on a weeknight.

5. Pork Tenderloin with Root Vegetables

Carrots, parsnips, onion, and potatoes under the pork, with broth, thyme, and garlic, and everything comes out tasting like it was roasted.

I make it in the fall when the vegetables are cheap and the house needs to smell like something.

Give the vegetables a head start of an hour on high before the pork goes in, so they finish together.

Spoon the juices over the top and call it a roast dinner.

6. Apple Cider Pork Tenderloin

Pork and apples, the old pairing, and the slow cooker does it well.

Sliced apples and onion go around the pork with apple cider, a little dijon, and a pinch of cinnamon, and the apples cook down into a soft, sweet sauce.

Use a firm apple like Honeycrisp or Granny Smith so there’s still something to bite.

Mashed sweet potatoes underneath, and it’s a fall dinner even in March.

7. Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin

A bottle of teriyaki sauce, a little extra garlic and ginger, and a pork tenderloin, and it’s better than it has any right to be!

The sauce thickens with a cornstarch slurry in the last fifteen minutes, and the pork gets sliced and tossed back through it.

Rice, green beans, and sesame seeds on top.

My kids ask for this one more than the chicken version, and I’ve stopped being surprised.

8. Trisha Yearwood’s Pork Tenderloin

A famous recipe for a reason, and the reason is the sauce.

The pork cooks in a mix of soy sauce, brown sugar, red wine, and garlic, with sliced onion underneath, and it comes out dark, glossy, and tender.

The onions soak up all of it and get eaten first.

Mashed potatoes to catch the sauce, and a vegetable that isn’t afraid of it.

9. Maple Brown Sugar Pork

Maple syrup, brown sugar, dijon, and a little soy, cooked into a glaze that’s sweet enough for the kids and sharp enough for the adults.

It’s the one I make for company because it slices pretty and the sauce photographs well, which shouldn’t matter but does.

Roasted Brussels sprouts on the side, and the glaze goes over those too.

10. Cranberry Orange Pork Tenderloin

My holiday pork, and the one I make when I don’t feel like a whole ham.

A can of whole cranberry sauce, orange juice and zest, and a little brown sugar cook down around the pork into a sauce that’s tart, sweet, and a bit festive.

It feeds six from one tenderloin if there are enough sides, and it looks like you fussed.

Wild rice or mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, and rolls to mop up the sauce.

Notes on Pork Tenderloin in a Slow Cooker

A one-pound tenderloin is done in two and a half to three hours on low, and it’s dry at five, so this is not a cut to leave all day.

Check it with an instant-read thermometer and pull it at 145 degrees, then let it rest ten minutes before slicing.

A quick sear in a cast iron skillet before the crock gives the glazed recipes better color and takes four minutes, and I skip it for the gravy ones.

Trim the silverskin, the shiny membrane along one side, with a thin boning knife before cooking, or that side stays chewy.

Most of these sauces are thin straight out of the crock, and a tablespoon of cornstarch in two tablespoons of cold water, stirred in for the last fifteen minutes on high, fixes it.

Two tenderloins fit side by side in a 6-quart oval slow cooker, and the timing barely changes, so I double the ones we like.

Leftovers keep three days sliced in their sauce, and they’re better cold in a sandwich than reheated.

More Crockpot Dinners on the Site

The quick crockpot dinners with ten minutes of prep post has the same kind of dump-and-go recipes, with chicken and beef in the mix.

My hearty crockpot beef stew with root vegetables uses the same vegetables as the pork tenderloin above, for the nights you want beef.

And the crockpot meals with chicken breast that don’t dry out post covers the other lean cut that people overcook.