Pork Tenderloin Brine

What makes the best pork tenderloin brine and how long does pork need to brine, anyways? I’ve got the answers for both wet and dry-brining.

What Is Brining?

There are two types of brines – wet and dry. A standard wet brine is when you soak meats in a salt water solution. A dry brine skips the water and instead you sprinkle salt all over the outside of your cut of meat and put it in the fridge. Both methods are wonderful to achieve moist, tender, well-seasoned meat.

We tested both dry-brining and wet-brining to see what was best for pork tenderloin. The goal was to find out what was best, while also being the most convenient. Since it’s a thin piece of meat, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s possible that the wet brine could penetrate and work very quickly, as it does when brining chicken breasts and when brining chicken wings. But, since a dry brine works so well on smaller cuts of tender meat, like when you dry-brine a steak, that could be the way to go here.

What Goes In A Brine? 

The wet brine for this pork tenderloin testing was our standard brine recipe, which is essentially 4 cups of cool water mixed with 4 tablespoons of Morton’s kosher salt (measurements for other kinds of salt are given below). The dry brine was 2 teaspoons of Morton’s kosher salt sprinkled all over each pork tenderloin.

As with our chicken breast brine testing, adding other ingredients to the brine didn’t really affect the flavor of the meat, especially when it was only wet-brined for 1 hour. A scoop of garlic powder added to the salt and water solution after the salt has dissolved will give it a nice mild garlic flavor. If you want more flavors in your brine, my best suggestion is to make a flavor slurry brine, like this turkey brine recipe. To do this, you’re actually pureeing herbs, onions, and garlic with the water and salt. That puree is very highly flavored and truly does penetrate the meat.

How To Make A Brine

To make the brine for pork tenderloin, all you need to do is mix together the salt and the water. It’s a large amount of salt though so it can take a minute or two for it to dissolve completely. Just keep stirring until it’s less cloudy and there’s no more salt undissolved at the bottom.

There’s no need to use warm water, in my testing I’ve found that cold water has a better effect on the meat.

How Long To Brine Pork Tenderloin

I tested 9 pork tenderloins to compare the difference between wet-brining and dry-brining, and to determine the perfect amount of time needed for the best tasting pork.

After brining, I cooked them side by side with the same baking method. I lightly oiled them (olive oil cooking spray) and baked them at 300°F for 30 minutes. (Note that I usually bake pork tenderloin at 350°F, but I really wanted to make sure that the edges of the tenderloins didn’t dry out so that we had consistently plump meat to try.) They were at 150°F on an instant read thermometer when I took them out. 

For my testing, I was comparing against an unbrined pork tenderloin that I salted immediately prior to cooking.

Chart: Pork Tenderloin Flavor And Texture Changes After Brining

Brining Method	Time	Results
Unbrined	0 minutes	Juicy with nice seasoning on the outside from salting right before cooking. Most convenient, no planning ahead. Third choice!
Wet Brine	30 minutes	A bit tough, brine did not have chance to penetrate. Seasoning was better when unbrined. Don’t recommend.
Wet Brine	1 hour	Tender and juicy, with nice seasoning throughout. First choice!
Wet Brine	2 hours	Very tender, not quite as juicy. Maybe a tad too salty.
Wet Brine	3 hours	Definitely too salty, also kind of chewy. Not good.
Dry Brine	30 minutes	Reasonably good seasoning, fairly juicy meat.
Dry Brine	1 hour	A bit too salty and not juicy.
Dry Brine	2 hours	Great seasoning, average for juiciness and tenderness.
Dry Brine	3 hours	Wonderfully juicy and tender, nice amount of saltiness. Second choice!

The Verdict

We had three taste-testers and they were in agreement for most of the conditions. The preference for all three people was for the pork tenderloin that was wet-brined for 1 hour. Second choice was for the dry-brined for 3 hours.

I have since done an extra test of dry-brining for 4 hours and I will say that it’s also quite good. I want to do a side-by-side of the wet-brined 1 hour and the dry-brined 4 hours. And I probably will. But since the goal was to also find convenience, I’m going to go ahead and say that wet-brined for 1 hour is the best.

How To Cook Pork Tenderloin After Brining