Name: Slow Cooker Pork Tenderloin with Apples, Cinnamon & Brown Sugar
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 240 min
Total time: 245 min
Ingredients: 1 2.5-3 lb pork tenderloin; 1/4 cup vegetable broth; 1.5 T brown sugar; 1 apple cut into thin slices (any apple is fine, choose your favorite. I used a Macintosh); 1 t cinnamon

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Sunday and crock pots just seem to go together for me. 🙂 I love waking up (late…) and just being able to pop dinner in the crock pot, turn a switch and voila, dinner is done! This tenderloin was a first for me, and I have to say it was one of the best pieces of pork I have ever had. The flavor of the apples, brown sugar and cinnamon is a perfect combination, it wasn’t too strong and it was nice and tender. Plus an added bonus was the house smelled delicious, just like a Sunday fall day should. 🙂

This slow cooker pork tenderloin with apples is about as simple as a recipe gets. Five ingredients, five minutes of prep, and the crock pot does the rest. You cut slits along the pork, rub it with brown sugar, tuck an apple slice or two into every cut, dust it with cinnamon and let it cook low and slow in a splash of broth.

Pork tenderloin with apples and brown sugar sounds like it should cost more than it does. It comes out at 4 Points per serving, which for a Sunday roast that fills the house with apple and cinnamon is my kind of dinner.

raw pork tenderloin on a wooden cutting board with cuts along its length, thin red-skinned apple slices tucked into each cut and cinnamon sprinkled over the top, ready for the slow cooker

Why you’ll love this apple cinnamon pork tenderloin

Five ingredients. Pork, broth, brown sugar, one apple and cinnamon. Nothing to hunt for.
Five minutes of work. Slice, rub, tuck, sprinkle. Then you walk away for four hours.
The apples cook right into the meat. Every slice comes with its own softened, cinnamon-dusted apple.
Sweet, not sugary. A tablespoon and a half of brown sugar across eight servings is just enough to glaze the outside.
Lean cut, low points. Tenderloin is the leanest cut of pork, which is how this lands at 4 Points.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 4 hours

Total Time: 4 hours 5 minutes

Servings: 8

Serving Size: 4 oz

4 WW Points Per Serving. You can view the recipe on the WW App here. (WW login required.)

Ingredient notes

Pork tenderloin. One whole tenderloin, kept whole. The cuts are what hold the apples in place, so it needs to stay in one piece.
Vegetable broth. Just a quarter cup, to keep the bottom of the crock pot from drying out and give the pork a little steam. Chicken broth does the same job.
Brown sugar. A tablespoon and a half for the whole roast. It melts into the juices and turns into a light glaze.
Apple. One, cut into thin slices. Any apple is fine, choose your favorite. I used a Macintosh, which goes soft and almost melts into the pork. A firmer apple like a Honeycrisp or Granny Smith will hold its shape better after four hours, if you want that.
Cinnamon. One teaspoon, sprinkled over the top so it lands on both the pork and the apple.

How to make slow cooker pork tenderloin with apples

Cut the pork. Set the tenderloin on a board and make cuts along the whole length, about 3/4 inch apart. Go most of the way down but not through, so the roast stays in one piece.
Rub with brown sugar. Spread the brown sugar evenly over the outside of the pork, working a little down into the cuts.
Tuck in the apples. Push two thin apple slices into each cut. If your apple is large, one slice per cut is plenty.
Sprinkle with cinnamon. Dust the cinnamon over the top so it hits the pork and the apple.
Into the crock pot. Pour the broth into the bottom of the slow cooker, set the pork in on top and cook on low for 3.5 to 4 hours, until nice and tender.
Slice and serve. Cut between the apple slices so every piece gets its own apple, and spoon a little of the juices over the top.

slow cooker pork tenderloin with apples after cooking, the apple slices softened and browned in the cuts and the pork pulling apart at the edges

Tips and substitutions

Check it at 3.5 hours. Tenderloin is lean and slow cookers run at different temperatures. It is done when the pork is tender and a thermometer in the thickest part reads 145°F.
Low, not high. Cooking on low is what keeps a lean cut like this from drying out. Do not be tempted to speed it up.
Drop the sugar if you like. A brown sugar sweetener blend works in place of the real thing. Any swap changes the points, so run the new version through the app before you count it.
Serve it with something plain. The pork is sweet and spiced, so mashed cauliflower or green beans alongside let it stand out.

Storing and reheating

Leftovers keep in an airtight container in the fridge for three to four days. Pour some of the crock pot juices over the slices first so the pork does not dry out. Reheat covered, at half power in the microwave or in a low oven, until just warmed through. Lean pork goes tough if you blast it.

Cooked slices freeze for up to three months. The apples come back softer than they went in, but the flavor holds.

cooked pork tenderloin with apples and cinnamon sliced on a wooden board, showing the tender shredded pork and a softened apple slice in each piece

Once the crock pot is out for the season it tends to stay out, and there is a whole collection of slow cooker recipes to keep it busy. If you like a tenderloin with something tucked inside but want savory instead of sweet, my cream cheese stuffed pork tenderloin with bacon goes in the oven and is ready in under an hour.

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