Honey Pork Tenderloin Sheet Pan

The protocol gets a lot easier the week you cook ahead. This is a meal-prep dish, two pans, one oven, dinner now and lunches for the next few days. When you are managing energy through midlife and an autoimmune protocol at the same time, the cooking you do once that feeds you several times is not laziness. It is strategy. It is how you keep eating well on the days you have nothing left to give the stove.

Pork tenderloin is a lean, satisfying cut, and it is a source of zinc and B vitamins, both of which support the everyday work your body does to repair and steady itself. The vegetables around it, Brussels sprouts, beets, parsnip, mushrooms, onion, give you fiber and a real range of color on the pan, which is what eating across the produce aisle is meant to look like. The glaze does its job with coconut aminos and honey instead of a soy-honey sauce, so the savory-sweet finish stays Core.

Let the meat rest before you slice it. Those 10 minutes are not a delay, they are part of the cooking. Whole foods on a sheet pan, roasted with attention and a little patience, are enough.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds pork tenderloin (two small ones work)
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 tablespoon coconut aminos
• 1 1/2 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound Brussels sprouts
• 3/4 pound yellow beets
• 3/4 pound red onion
• 1/2 pound cremini mushrooms
• 1/2 pound parsnip
• sea salt

Method

Heat the oven to 425F with racks in the middle and bottom positions. Line two rimmed sheet pans and oil them lightly.

Whisk 2 tablespoons of the olive oil with the coconut aminos, honey, and dried thyme. Rub this glaze all over the tenderloin and season it with salt. Set it on one of the pans.

Chop the Brussels sprouts, yellow beets, red onion, cremini mushrooms, and parsnip and spread them on the second pan. Toss with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and a little salt.

Roast the meat on the middle rack for 20 to 25 minutes, basting it a few times, until it reaches an internal temperature of 145F. Pull it and let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Roast the vegetables on the lower rack for 40 to 45 minutes, until tender. Slice the rested pork and serve it with the vegetables, or portion both into containers for the week.

Air fryer variation

If you are cooking a single small tenderloin rather than the full batch, the glazed pork works well in the air fryer. Glaze and salt it as above, then air fry at around 400F, turning once, until it reaches an internal 145F (start checking near 18 to 20 minutes for a small tenderloin), and rest 10 minutes before slicing. Roast the vegetables separately in the oven, since the full pan of vegetables is more than an air fryer basket holds. Times are approximate and depend on your machine, so go by the thermometer, not the clock.

*Adapted from asquirrelinthekitchen.com*