You think about bacon, you think about that thick or thin-cut slice of pork meat that crisps up beautifully and makes American breakfast, because, yes, most of the bacon in America is for breakfast. And most of the bacon in American is pork bacon.
But producers now also make bacon from beef, bacon from turkey, and bacon from chicken. Who would have thought that bacon can be made from anything either than pork? But it can, and it is.
Bacon made from beef
Is the perfect substitute for people who love bacon, but don’t like pork. Bacon made from beef retains some of the characteristics of pork bacon: it’s salty, and it’s cured and smoked.
But what makes beef bacon more appealing is the juiciness and the flavor of the meat, which is the same cut as with pork bacon, the pastrami cut, underneath the short ribs. Beef bacon is cut and prepared the same way as pork bacon.
The meat is wet cured in a mixture of water, salts, sugar, and spices. After the tumbling or the marinating, which takes about four hours, the meat is smoked for two-and-a-half hours.
Considering all the time it takes to cut, cure, and smoke the beef, that adds up to nearly 10 hours production process. Price justified, more so when you get natural Black Angus beef.
Shop for beef bacon from USDA certified farms to get superior flavor cooking material.
Bacon made from turkey
People say if it’s not pork, then it’s not bacon. While beef bacon is as true as bacon comes, the same cannot be said about turkey bacon.
Pork bacon comes from the belly of the pig. Beef bacon comes from the belly too, but of the beef. Turkey bacon, however, doesn’t come from turkey belly, and if it did, it wouldn’t probably have the fatty belly of pork and beef.
Turkey bacon is made from different parts of the turkey. Producers take mechanically-separated turkey parts and put them together to shape the bacon. They add other ingredients too. Canola oil, sodium phosphate, sodium nitrite and natural flavor. Sometimes it’s just healthier to stick to the authentic stuff.
Bacon made from chicken
Now that we know where turkey bacon comes from let’s see if the case is different with chicken bacon since this is also poultry.
The answer is no, chicken bacon isn’t more natural or any more authentic than turkey bacon. It’s made the same as the latter, by layering ground-up chicken. And it also contains a long list of ingredients that, when you stop to think about it, makes it even unhealthier than pork bacon.
What’s usually in chicken bacon: mechanically separated poultry, water, potassium chloride, carrageenan, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, smoke flavor, corn syrup solids, and salt. List of ingredients may vary.
There are some producers who make healthier chicken bacon and leave out nitrites, nitrates, and other unhealthy ingredients. Usually, the shorter the ingredients list is, the better.
Best choice? Beef bacon if you’re looking to substitute the pork version.