Island Breeze Pork Chops
with Cumin-Roasted Carrots, Mango Salsa & Scallion Rice
- Milk
Beach walks, moonlight swims, umbrellas in your drinks, warm sweet breezes: That’s where we’re going with this weeknight winner. Perfectly seared spiced pork chops are mounded with a juicy, tropical salsa made of mango, lime, scallion, and chiles. On the side: cumin-roasted carrots and buttery scallion-lime jasmine rice. It all comes together in about 30 minutes, leaving plenty of time to shake up a cocktail and start dreaming of your next getaway.
Ingredients
½ cup
Jasmine Rice
1 teaspoon
Cumin
4 ounce
Mango
10 ounce
Pork Chops
1 unit
Lime
1 teaspoon
Chili Flakes
1 clove
Garlic
9 ounce
Carrot
2 unit
Scallions
1 tablespoon
Southwest Spice Blend
¼ ounce
Cilantro
Not included in your delivery
teaspoon (tsp)
Salt
1 teaspoon (tsp)
Olive Oil
4 teaspoon (tsp)
Cooking Oil
1 tablespoon (tbsp)
Butter
(Contains: Milk)
teaspoon (tsp)
Black Pepper
Nutrition Values
Utensils
Cooking Steps
• Adjust rack to top position and preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash and dry produce. • Trim, peel, and cut carrots on a diagonal into ½-inch-thick pieces. Peel and mince or grate garlic. Trim and thinly slice scallions, separating whites from greens; mince whites. Pick half the cilantro leaves (all for 4 servings) from stems; roughly chop leaves. Zest and quarter lime.
• Toss carrots on a baking sheet with a large drizzle of oil, half the cumin (all for 4 servings), salt, and pepper. • Roast on top rack until browned and tender, 20-25 minutes.
• Meanwhile, heat a drizzle of oil in a small pot (medium pot for 4 servings) over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30-60 seconds. Stir in rice, ¾ cup water (1½ cups for 4), and a pinch of salt; bring to a boil. • Once boiling, cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook until rice is tender, 15-18 minutes. Keep covered off heat until ready to serve.
• While rice cooks, drain mango, discarding juice; roughly chop. • In a medium bowl, combine mango, scallion whites, chopped cilantro, a squeeze of lime juice (two squeezes for 4 servings), a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of chili flakes, and a pinch of salt and pepper.
• Pat pork* dry with paper towels and season all over with Southwest Spice Blend, salt, and pepper. • Heat a drizzle of oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add pork and cook until browned and cooked through, 4-6 minutes per side. Transfer to a cutting board and let rest at least 3 minutes.
• Fluff rice with a fork. Stir in scallion greens, 1 TBSP butter (2 TBSP for 4 servings), a squeeze of lime juice, and lime zest to taste. Taste and season with salt and pepper. • Thinly slice pork crosswise. Divide rice, pork, and carrots between plates. Squeeze over remaining lime juice to taste. Top pork with salsa and serve.
Pork is fully cooked when internal temperature reaches 145°.
Customer reviews
Review summary
Updated on Sep 2026- Flavor: The mango salsa and Southwest-spiced pork are a crowd-pleasing combo, with the cumin-roasted carrots and scallion-lime rice rounding out a bold, tropical plate 🌶️. Some found the overall flavors mild; adding extra seasoning to the pork or more chili flakes to the salsa helped dial up the heat.
- Ease of prep: Most found this a straightforward weeknight cook, though a few noted the actual prep time runs longer than the stated estimate.
- Suggestions: Use fresh mango if you can — reviewers consistently found the packaged mango too soft and bland, and felt fresh mango would elevate the salsa significantly. A few also cooked the mango down with its juice to create a saucier salsa, which they loved.
- Leftovers: One reviewer noted the carrots don't reheat well and taste much worse microwaved, so enjoy them fresh off the sheet pan.
- Rice: The scallion-lime rice was a standout for many; some found it mushy or clumpy, and suggest using slightly less water and not over-stirring. A few added extra cilantro or lime juice to brighten the flavor.
- Pork: Watch the cook time closely — several reviewers found the chops turned tough when cooked the full suggested time, especially thinner cuts; reduce oven time and check early for best results.
Reviews from our home cooks
I fully expected that I would enjoy this meal, but I also expected it to taste familiar to recipes gone by. Wow. What a pleasant treat this turned out to be. The southwest seasoning on the pork was an exciting contrast for the salsa. The addition of chili flakes and butter to the rice really made that side pop with richness and depth. It complimented the scallion and lime so well. Oh, and the cumin on the carrots? Really helped to carry the theme across the board...eh, plate. Well done.
Wooowwww I didn't think I would like this but was I wrong! Sooo good! The mango with pork and the rice and the roasted cumin carrots. So many different flavors that marry so well together
I love the way I have learned to cook rice and the added ingredients like ginger to the rice and scallion whites to incorporate extra flavor is such a great idea! The pork was fantastic and I love carrots now. I used to be like eeeh carrots. NOT ANYMORE! I dream of eating them....lol
I don't like carrots, but this preparation was delicious. The mango sauce for the pork was also yummy. I liked this recipe a lot!
This dish (in all its variations) hits hard in a big way every single time. LOVE IT!! The Southwest flavor packet needs to be added to the marketplace STAT!! And the Tex-Mex Paste! Flavors are big, bright, bordering spicy but holding fast to savory deliciousness. The mango salsa adds that perfect contrast of sweetness - and the rice plays its role perfectly, absorbing all of those fantastic flavors. I didn't make the carrots.
Prep time again is understated. More than ten minutes to prep the veggies and lay out everything. The one carrot that was in the box was huge. Had to cut in half lengthwise and then in slices. It cooked up fine so other than that, was good. The mango salsa with just a pinch of red pepper flakes was great! And, my husband liked the rice a lot this time.
I've noted this before, but half a cup of uncooked rice is too small for 2 servings. Two, the pork chop is significantly smaller than the picture showed. I also think that the mixing of butter in the rice isn't always the best when it is already seasoned with so many other things. Overall, I liked the pork chop the most because the mango salsa tasted good on it, probably would be better with real mango though. I would've roasted my carrots for less time. Tastes much worse when microwaved. The carrots are dried out and don't taste too well with oil, the butter makes the rice very mushy. The steak still tastes good.
The fruit salsa dishes with carrots are always a hit in my house. It's the sort of thing my husband initially doesn't think he'd like but then eats every bite of.
Delicious sweet fruit sauce goes well with smoky character of cumin rub on pork.
Very good quality pork chops. The rice was flavorful. We would order this again
