Savory Carrot Bacon | Healthy Bacon Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Does carrot bacon taste like real bacon? ›

Some pieces will still look like carrot slices, but some pieces will look like crispy bacon. No matter what it looks like, the taste is unbelievably good. Again, it's a healthy carrot with a marinade that helps it taste like bacon.

With the help of some extra ingredients and spices for your bacon, you can take its original savory, salty, and smoky flavor and enhance it with things like chili powder and coffee, Sriracha, maple syrup, brown sugar, or honey.

Coconut, mushroom, and tempeh strips become smoky, salty, crispy plant-based bacon alternatives. When trying to avoid bacon, I found a brand of “Tempeh” that was an acceptable substitute for bacon in my BLT sandwiches. It's made from fermented soybeans.

Hooray Foods' plant-based bacon has less sodium and fat than real bacon but tastes a whole lot like the real stuff.

A kosher mayonnaise-based product developed by J&D's Foods that is prepared to taste like bacon, Baconnaise is vegetarian and contains no bacon.

A spice rub is the way to go. Sweet and savory flavor combinations seem to be the most popular. Try coarsely ground black pepper, brown sugar and sage. Brown sugar, cayenne pepper and fennel would be interesting too.

Combine maple syrup and brown sugar into a bowl and warm (microwave or saucepan is fine). Lay bacon on wire rack (with parchment paper underneath) and brush bacon with syrup mixture. Add to the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes. With 5 minutes remaining, remove rack from oven and brush remaining mixture over bacon.

My favorite, and the hero of this bacon love story is Smoked Spanish Sweet Paprika. In Spain, it's known as dulce and made from a Spanish variety of Capsicum annum that looks like mini red bell peppers (they're real cute, guys).

Packed with iron, calcium, magnesium, and protein, the seaweed–called dulse–also tastes like bacon. Well, sort of. The verdict: Yes, with its savory, umami, and salty taste, it's sort of like bacon. A smoked version is even more bacon-like.

If you're looking for an all-veggie bacon substitute, shiitake bacon is the one for you! The mushrooms themselves have a rich umami flavor, so just two ingredients turn them into delectable vegan bacon: tamari and extra-virgin olive oil.

What ingredient to avoid in bacon? ›

The health risk of bacon is largely to do with two food additives: potassium nitrate (also known as saltpetre) and sodium nitrite. It is these that give salamis, bacons and cooked hams their alluring pink colour.

Sometimes called “Italian bacon”, pancetta is a pork belly side, salted and cured with pepper, spices and rolled into a casing. It is then potentially dried/cured for several months. It is not smoked like bacon.

Prosciutto, pancetta, and bacon are all cured meats that look and taste somewhat similarly; but their appearance, texture, and taste differ depending on where the meat comes from, the breed of pig it comes from, and how it's cured.

Bacon & Pancetta: Cured Pork Belly

Bacon and pancetta have the most in common. They are both typically made from pork belly and both are cured for a certain length of time. Both are also considered “raw” and need to be cooked before eating. The process for making the two is slightly different.

As you can see: not a trace of meat in there, which is actually a big win for vegans or vegetarians who may be missing bacon. So what are these bits actually made from? They're basically just flavored soy protein chunks.

Dulse is a red algae with slender leaves that grows on the northern coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. But will it bacon?