Hong Kong Baked Pork Chop Rice

This Hong Kong Baked Pork Chop Rice, or guk ju pa fan (焗豬扒飯) in Cantonese, is a delicious casserole of layered flavors: a base of egg fried rice, juicy fried pork chops, and a rich tomato gravy topped with melted cheese.

This East-Meets-West amalgamation of cultures is Hong Kong comfort food. If you’ve never had it, we promise you will fall head over heels for this dish!

A Classic Cha Chaan Teng Recipe

The Hong Kong Pork Chop Bake is a staple of Hong Kong cafes or diners known as cha chaan teng (茶餐廳). Many of the dishes these diners serve feature ingredients like ham, cheese, copious amounts of butter, tomato sauce, and macaroni—all washed down with strong milk tea.

These dishes are the result of British influence during Hong Kong’s long history as a British colony. Many remain nostalgic fixtures of everyday life in Hong Kong, and we’ve gotten so many requests over the years for some of these recipes, like Gong Zai Mein (HK Breakfast Instant Noodles). Another classic is a Pineapple Bun with a thick pat of butter in the middle.

It was only recently, however, that we were able to taste the Baked Pork Chop Rice at Cha Kee in Manhattan Chinatown during a weekday lunch hour. Long story short, it was absolutely delicious. While we didn’t personally grow up with these nostalgic dishes, we understand why people love them!

What’s So Special About Baked Pork Chop Rice?

This Hong Kong Baked Pork Chop Rice is all about building layers of flavor.

The tomato gravy isn’t just a marinara sauce. Our version is flavored with ketchup (very Hong Kong), oyster sauce, soy sauce, and a little BUTTER. The fried rice is lightly seasoned with fluffy eggs, and the pork chops are prepared with a delicious oyster sauce and five spice marinade before being dredged and shallow-fried.

How could it be bad?!

It’s a little more work to make than a lasagna…but similar to lasagna. All you need is a side of vegetables once it’s done, whether that be a garlicky broccoli or stir-fried bok choy.

Hong Kong Baked Pork Chop Rice served on plates with milk tea

At Cha Kee, they serve this dish in a single serving, but to make it at home, we made it to serve six to eight people casserole-style, because for the effort…why the heck not!? It makes great leftovers.

That said, you could easily make this recipe for 1-2 people, scaling it down with the handy servings slider in our recipe card (just click on the number of servings to bring it up).

What Pork Chops Should I Use?

Most average grocery stores will stock thicker pork loin chops, which require pounding to a ½-inch (1.25cm) thickness. On the day we photographed this recipe, we were able to find thin cut pork chops that required no pounding, which made things much simpler.

Either will work well. We usually buy bone-in loin chops, because we find that more fat is left on them, and we like getting the extra bits of tasty meat close to the bone.

Trim the bones away with a paring knife, and set them aside in a resealable bag in the freezer. When you have 1-2 pounds of bones, you can add them along with some ribs to make one of my mom’s Chinese soups, like Chinese Watercress Soup with Pork Ribs (Sai Yeung Choy Tong), or her incredibly tasty Pork & Chicken Stock.

Baked Pork Chop Rice Recipe Instructions

Prepare the pork chops:

First prepare the pork chops. Rinse them under cold running water to remove any bone fragments. If you have bone-in chops, trim the bone away with a sharp paring knife.

(We stash bones in the freezer for pork bone soup!)

Cut 3-4 small slits along the fat on the outer perimeter of each chop to prevent it from curling during cooking. Place each chop underneath a sheet of parchment paper, and use a rolling pin or meat mallet to pound it to a ½-inch (1.25cm) thickness.

You can sometimes find thin-cut bone-in loin chops that don’t need to be pounded out—just trimmed. That’s what you see in the pictures, but we have made the recipe in both scenarios, and they each work fine.

Tip!

If you don’t have a rolling pin or mallet, you can use the back of a cleaver or thick chef’s knife to pound out a cross-hatch pattern, rotating the pork chop as you go and flipping it to do the same on the other side.

Add the pork chops to a large bowl along with the sugar, salt, white pepper, five spice powder, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine, and light soy sauce. Toss to thoroughly coat the chops in the marinade, and refrigerate 2-3 hours while you prepare the sauce and rice, or up to overnight.

pork chops and marinade ingredients in glass bowl

Prepare the sauce:

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the oil and butter, and sweat the onions until translucent. Stir in the flour, and cook for 1 minute. Then add the ketchup.

Stir and fry the ketchup for 2-3 minutes. Add the chicken base, crushed tomatoes, water, sugar, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Simmer until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add salt to taste if needed (some canned tomatoes have salt added, in which case this isn’t necessary, but some may not). Remove from the heat and set aside.

Make the fried rice:

If you’ve made fresh rice for your fried rice, fluff it with a fork and leave it uncovered so any excess moisture can evaporate (doing this on a sheet pan speeds up the process). If using cold leftover rice, wet your hands and use your fingers to break up any large clumps.

Heat a wok until it’s lightly smoking (or a deep skillet until a splash of water beads on the surface). Add 1 tablespoon of oil, and lightly scramble the eggs until just set, breaking the egg into smaller chunks. Transfer back to the bowl you beat them in and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of oil. Add the garlic and cook for 20 seconds (don’t let it brown), then add the rice. Spread the rice in a single layer and then toss it.

Season with the sugar, salt, sesame oil, and light soy sauce. Add the frozen peas and carrots, and stir-fry to combine.

frozen peas and carrots added to fried rice

Add the Shaoxing wine around the perimeter of the wok, and add the eggs back in. Stir-fry for another minute. Turn off the heat and transfer the fried rice to a 9×13-inch casserole dish.

adding scrambled eggs back to fried rice

egg fried rice spread into 9x13 inch baking dish

Fry the pork chops, assemble & bake:

Preheat your oven to 400°F/200°C. Beat 2 eggs in a wide shallow dish, and add the flour to another shallow dish for dredging.

Add about ¼ inch (6mm) of oil to a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Dredge the pork chops in all-purpose flour, and then coat in beaten egg, then dredge again in flour.

When a bit of the floury dredge dipped into the hot oil sizzles vigorously, you’re ready to fry. Gently place a couple pork chops in the oil. Fry for 3-4 minutes on each side, lowering the heat to medium if they’re getting too dark. Because they will be baked, you only need to cook the pork chops until 90% done. Repeat with all the pork chops.

Slice the pork chops into ¾-inch (2cm) strips. Place them in a single layer on top of the fried rice in the baking dish.

breaded and fried pork chop cut into slices

sliced pork chops layered in baking dish

Ladle the tomato sauce evenly over the pork chops. Top with the shredded cheese.

tomato sauce spread on pork chops and fried rice

Bake in your preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is melted and lightly browned. Enjoy!

baked pork chop rice with lightly browned cheese

Can I make this in advance?

This isn’t a recipe that lends itself well to freezing—it’s much better enjoyed fresh. That said, you could make batches of the tomato sauce and freeze them in quart containers for another day to remove one step of the recipe for when the craving strikes!

You can also marinate the pork chops the day before, though it’s not strictly necessary to do so.

Baked Pork Chop Rice with cheese, tomato ssauce, and egg fried rice

Hong Kong Baked Pork Chop Rice

This Baked Pork Chop Rice recipe, with egg fried rice, juicy pork chops, a rich tomato sauce, and melted cheese, is Hong Kong comfort food!

serves: 8

Prep: 2 hours

Cook: 45 minutes

Total: 2 hours 45 minutes