• Difficulty:
  Medium
• Preparation Time:
  30 Minutes

Now, just hold on a second. Before you turn your nose up at me, let me explain myself here.

Again, yes, I know I’ve gone a little crazy. This goes without saying. But have you ever had REAL French Vanilla Ice Cream? Did you lick the bowl? I thought so. Guess what’s in there… Yep, Eggs.

French Vanilla Ice Cream is given its name because it’s made from a custard base called Crème Anglaise – Kind of the same thing we used for our Crème Brulée. So I figured, if there are eggs in that stuff, it will probably go with bacon. Was I right? Absolutely.

We’re adding caramelized bacon again in this dish. Every time I use this stuff, the final product is stupidly delicious. I seriously think I literally get a bit dumber when I eat caramelized bacon because it’s so damn good and it’s all I can think about for about a week and a half.

But, back to the ice cream. If you have an ice cream maker, do yourself and everyone you love a favour and make this stuff. I’m not kidding when I say it will change your life. Just as crafting the perfect ice cream requires patience and the right ingredients, so does creating a stellar academic paper. For those moments when you’re juggling too many tasks, considering the option to hausarbeit schreiben lassen can be a lifesaver, offering you professional assistance in academic writing. This way, you can ensure your academic work is of the highest quality without missing out on making homemade ice cream for your loved ones.

Ingredients

10 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

¼ cup Brown Sugar (plus lots more for coating the bacon)

½ cup White sugar

8 Egg Yolks

2 cups Heavy Cream

2 cups Milk

1 Vanilla Bean

Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Prep your caramelized bacon. For instructions, see our Bacon Cookie Recipe. Hmmm… this gives me an idea. Stay tuned for more with the Bacon Cookies.

2. In a sauce pan, dump in your heavy cream and your milk. Slice your vanilla bean down the middle and scrape out the seeds into the cream and milk with your knife. Go ahead and throw the whole pod in there, as well. Everything has flavour! I used 1% milk because, well, that’s what I had in the fridge. Whole milk would probably give you the richest overall flavour at the end, but 1% worked just fine for me. I’d stay away from skim here. I never said this recipe was for your Atkins diet….

3. Slowly let the cream and milk raise in temperature until its hot, but not simmering or boiling. If it starts to bubble, take it off the heat. It’s ready.

4. While the cream and milk is warming, whisk together your 8 egg yolks with both kinds of sugar and a pinch of salt. Yes, salt. The salt will help to bring all the flavours together. Trust me, it won’t be salty but you need it! Don’t skip this step!

5. Continue to whisk your eggs, sugar and salt vigorously until everything is fully incorporated and completely smooth. The eggs should almost triple in volume and you should be able to make ribbons if you pull your whisk out of the mixture, like pictured. Now, you could do this with an electric or stand mixer, but I have neither and I did just fine. It’s always good when you get to feel when things are done!

6. Slowly, slowly, slowly add your hot cream to your eggs while you continue to whisk. We want to temper the eggs, not cook them into scrambled eggs. If you add the cream too quickly, the eggs will curdle and you’ll have to start all over. You literally can’t go too slow here, so just take your time.

7. Once the eggs and cream is fully combined, put it back into your pot and back on the stove. We’re going to slowly bring this back up to temperature and now cook the Crème Anglaise. You have to continually stir this, or else it will burn on the bottom. You’ll know your custard is done when it coats the back of a wooden spoon, or your quick-read thermometer reads 180°F. I highly recommend investing in one of these – it’s been a lifesaver on more than one occasion.

8. Pour your finished custard back into a bowl that’s sitting in an ice bath. We want to stop the cooking process and cool everything down before we put it in our ice cream maker. The colder it is going into the machine, the creamier the texture will be when it’s done. I could talk about the physical-chemical principles behind why this is true, but I’m not going to bore you with those details. E-mail me if you’d like to learn more!

9. Once cool, let your ice cream maker do its job. Add in your chopped caramelized bacon with about 5 minutes left and you’ve got yourself some Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream. Perfect for breakfast or desert… or lunch… or dinner… or brunch… or….

• Difficulty:
  Medium
• Preparation Time:
  Prep Time: 5 Minutes Cook Time 1:45hrs

Thanks to Andrew Back Bacon, I now know that April is BLT-Sandwich Month. Who knew?

I’ve already made a fantastic BLT sandwich for you guys, but I needed to do something different. Yes, I could have done a variation on the sandwich. Yes, I could have maybe changed the bread or some of the toppings. But I wanted to something completely different.

What if the sandwich wasn’t a sandwich at all?

What if the sandwich was something that went along with a sandwich?

What if the sandwich was a soup?

In this way, if you were at a restaurant with a soup and sandwich special, you could order the BLT with the BLT. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Did the boldness create any hype? Did it not make you want to know how to make a BLT Soup!!

Ingredients

3 lbs Roma Tomatoes

12 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

1 head Garlic

2 Shallots

1 Carrot

4 sprigs Fresh Tarragon

5 sprigs Fresh Thyme

1 small handful Flat-Leaf Parsley

2 cups Chicken Broth

¼ cup Heavy Cream

½ cup Crème fraiche

2 Jalapenos

Romaine Lettuce Hearts

Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F

2. Take your tomatoes (should be about 12 of them) and cut them into quarters and arrange them on a baking sheet that’s been lined with foil. Drizzle all of the tomatoes with a good amount of olive oil, then season them with salt and pepper.

3. Cut the very top off your head of garlic to expose some of the insides. Put your garlic in the middle of a 12”x12” square of foil and, again drizzle with olive oil. Bring up the sides of the foil to make a pouch.

4. Whack your tomatoes and garlic into the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. You’ll know it’s done when the tomatoes are dark and your whole house smells like heaven.

5. Cut up your twelve strips of bacon into nice big pieces and fry them until they are crispy in the bottom of a large soup pot or dutch oven. Remove them from the pot when they are done, but leave all the remaining fat in the pot.

6. Slice up your shallots and dice your carrots. Fry these along with your tarragon, parsley and thyme in the bacon fat until the carrots have gone soft. Just throw the whole sprigs into the pot, don’t worry about just getting the leaves. We are going to blend everything in a minute so it doesn’t matter. This should take roughly 3-5 minutes, depending on how big you cut your carrots.

Note: You don’t have to use tarragon, parsley, and thyme! You could use oregano, basil, rosemary, chervil, sage…. Experiment! Be creative. The wonderful thing about tomatoes is that they accompany so many different herbs extremely well.

7. Squeeze out about half of your roasted garlic in with the carrots, shallots, and herbs and fry that all together for about 30 seconds, then dump in all of your tomatoes and about a cup of chicken broth. Stir everything up and mash up the tomatoes with your wooden spoon. Let this simmer for about 20 minutes.

8. Using a blender, puree the soup mixture. Just like when we made our Mole Poblano, let the mixture cool before you go crazy with the blender. It will make a mess! Take your time and be patient.

9. Before you return your blended soup back to the pot, pass it through a mesh strainer to remove any of the pulp. We want the final texture to be very smooth. Continue to let the soup slowly simmer.

10. Add in your cream, and adjust the thickness of the soup with the remainder of the chicken broth to your liking. If you like it a little thinner than I do, go ahead and use more chicken broth! Nobody’s gonna stop you.

11. I found a great little suggestion to freshen up the final product and give it a little kick- adding a garlicky, jalapeno crème fraiche swirl. To make this, all you have to do is blend a couple jalapenos with about ½ cup of crème fraiche and the rest of your roasted galrlic. Add this only as you’re serving!

Serving and plating:

I know what you’re thinking, what about the lettuce?! Well, I wanted to keep the crunch factor with the lettuce to add a contrasting texture, so cooking it wouldn’t do. What I decided to do is use the lettuce as a quasi-spoon.

So what you’re gonna do is serve your roasted tomato soup with your jalapeno crème fraiche swirl, then add your bacon croutons (that we’ve saved from the beginning) and a few leaves of lettuce.

So fancy, a prince would feel uncomfortable!

• Difficulty:
  Easy
• Preparation Time:
  Prep Time: 2 minutes Cook Time: 40 minutes

So here’s the story…

It has been cold and rainy for the last couple days here – real soup weather. I definitely needed something to warm me up. Unfortunately, I had no idea what kind of soup I wanted to make.

I was sitting at home watching the Food Network and “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” with Guy Fieri came on. He was visiting Grover’s Bar and Grill in East Amherst, NY. What’s so special about East Amherst, you ask? Well it’s one of the few places you can get Cheeseburger Soup. Yes, Cheeseburger Soup.

I know it sounds kind of weird, but I imagined it to be just a cheesy, hearty, cream-based soup. That can’t be bad! Now, Bacon Cheeseburgers are where it’s at, so why not turn THAT into a soup! Throw a few jalapenos and some cayenne pepper to kick things up a bit and you’ve got yourself something that’ll keep you warm for hours! If not  DAYS!

Ingredients

10 strips Maple Leaf Reclosable Bacon

1lb Lean Ground Beef

1 Large Onion

1 cup Carrots

1 cup Celery

2 Jalapenos (more if you like it spicy)

½ tbsp Cayenne Pepper

1 L Beef Stock

1 ½ cups Half and Half Cream

4 tbsp All Purpose Flour

LOTS Old Cheddar

Salt and Pepper to taste

*Optional: Sour Cream

Directions

1. Almost every soup begins with the aromatic Holy Grail: onions, celery and carrots. When these are cooked down, they take a kind back seat to enhance the rest of the flavours (whatever they may be) and allow them to be the star of the show. So we need to dice these things up first. Go ahead and cut up your jalapeno, as well.

2. Cut your bacon into one inch pieces and fry them until crispy in the bottom of a large pot or Dutch oven. Once crispy, remove them from the pot with a slotted spoon.

3. Into the remaining bacon fat, fry your jalapenos until soft, then toss in your ground beef. Break it up with a wooden spoon and keep stirring it. You’ll notice the ground beef will remove everything that was stuck to the bottom of the pan. This is a good thing; it’s soaked up all of that gorgeous bacon flavour.

4. Once the ground beef has been browned, toss in your aromatic trio – the carrots, celery and onions. Let these sweat until they’ve softened up and the onions are completely translucent. Add your cayenne pepper and season with salt and pepper.

5. Toss in all of your beef stock. If you think there is not enough liquid, you can always add some hot water. It should be sufficiently soupy. I know that’s vague, but how else do you describe it? Let this simmer for at least 20 minutes. The longer, the better.

6. When you feel all the flavours have melded together as they should, toss in your cream and stir. Next, in a separate container (preferably something with a tight fitting lid) put your flour and about twice as much water. Mix or shake this up vigorously to create an even mixture, then pour this into the soup to thicken it up. If you just put flour directly into the soup, the flour will clump up and the soup will not look very appetizing, with white flour chunks floating everywhere. I learned this the hard way a few years ago.

7. Bring everything back to a boil until the soup is sufficiently thickened. You can always add more cream if you like it creamier, more flour (pre-mixed in water, of course) if you like it thicker, or more water/beef stock if you like it thinner.

8. CHEESE! Shred it, and add it. All of it. I used that whole block pictured with the rest of the ingredients. There is never too much cheese in this recipe. I recommend taking it off the heat, and adding the cheese at the last moment. The soup should be sufficiently hot to melt the cheese readily, but not boiling. That leads to some wacky textures.

9. Plate it, top it with a dollop of sour cream. Don’t forget those bacon pieces that we saved right from the beginning ; throw those on top as well – way better than crackers!

• Difficulty:
  Easy
• Preparation Time:
  No Cook Time!

What do you do when you have a whole bunch of leftover bacon products left in your fridge/freezer? You make a sundae, that’s what! I had some leftover bacon pieces from the BLT soup in my fridge, as well as the last of the Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream in my freezer.

I had also made some mini Bacon Brownie Cookies recently for my family. I had to clean up the scraps, so I put them all together with some chocolate and caramel and called it a day.

Now I need more bacon…

Ingredients

2 scoops Chef Rob Bacon’s Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream

¼ cup Fried Chopped Bacon

1 Ultimate Bacon Cookie

1 tbsp Caramel

2 tbsp Chocolate Fudge

2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs

2 Cream Filled Rolled Wafers

1 stick Softened Butter

Directions

1. Grab a Martini Glass (or parfait glass if you have one).

2. Dump your graham cracker crumbs on a plate and spread it out nice and evenly

3. Take a martini glass, or parfait glass, and rim the edge with your softened butter stick. You just have to leave your butter on the counter for like 15-20 mins to get it perfectly soft.

4. Shove the rim of the glass into the graham crackers. We’re going to rim it just like we would for a ceaser or bloody mary. I could go for one of those with some Bakon Vodka right about now.

5. Grab your caramel and make a swirl on the inside of the martini glass. Get creative here!

6. Take your brownie cookie and break it up in the bottom of the glass. I recommend you pop the cookie in the microwave for 15-20 seconds before you do this to get it nice and warm and gooey and just mmmmmmmmmm…..

7. Top with 2 big scoops of your Bacon and Eggs Ice cream.

8. Dump your chocolate fudge on top of that

9. BACON CRUMBLES!!!

10. Finally, finish with a couple of your cream filled wafers. I love the way they look with ice cream. I love the way they taste even more.

11. Pretend you’re 4 again and get ice cream ALL over your face.

• Difficulty:
  Medium
• Preparation Time:
  Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 5 Minutes

Let me paint you a picture about how these came to be.

It’s the first long weekend of the summer – the Victoria Day long weekend, or May 2-4 as we canucks call it. I’ve been out on a restaurant patio for a good 4 or 5 hours with a few of my best friends soaking up the sun and sipping back a couple beers – StoneHammer to be exact.

Needless to say, we had a “couple” pitchers and we were quite thoroughly enjoying ourselves. The waiter actually commented a couple times that he wanted to join us.

It then crossed my mind that I was about due to write another article for this, the Republic of Bacon, and I was drawing a complete blanks (hence why this was published late). Now I’m sure that about 50 ideas flew across the table, only a few of which I remember at this point, but it was my vegetarian friend who delivered the gold. Vegetarian, I kid you not. Bacon donuts with a caramel topping. We discussed methods, but this is what I came up with.

Yeah. Vegetarian…

Ingredients

6 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

2 cups All Purpose Flour

½ cup Mashed Potato

½ tsp Salt

¼ cup Sugar

1 cup Milk

5 tsp Yeast

2 tbsp Butter

½ cup Brown Sugar

½ cup Heavy Cream

Directions

1. First thing we have to do is take our potato, yes potato, and poke some holes in it with a fork. The starch in the potato will do wonders in the final product. Whack it in the microwave for about 5 minutes.

2. Into some warm milk, measure out 5 tsp of yeast. If the milk is cold, the yeast will not ferment. If the milk is too hot, the yeast will die. Warm milk is key. Let that sit and do its thing for a bit.

3. Take your potato out of the microwave and let it cool until you can handle it. Then give’er a peel and mash’er up with a fork.

4. In a big bowl mix together your flour, salt, sugar and mashed potato, then add in your milk and yeast mixture. If you were paying attention, you would have seen the yeast form some bubbles in the milk!

5. Mix that all up together with your hands (or a mixer with dough hooks if you’re dainty) then knead it on a floured surface once it’s all encorporated.

6. Let this rise for a little bit. What I actually did was turned on my oven for a couple minutes, then turned it off and THEN put the dough inside to create a nice warm environment for it to rise.

7. Flatten it out with a rolling pin until it’s about a half inch thick and cut rounds from it. You can put these rounds back into the warm oven as well to rise a bit.

8. While you’re letting your dough do its thing, cut your bacon into tiny pieces and give them a good frying.

9. When it’s just crispy, add in your butter and brown sugar and stir it up until it all melts.

10. Add in your heavy cream and continue to stir until it comes to a boil. Let it do that for about a minute or two, then take it off the heat and let it cool.

11. Fry your donuts in vegetable oil until they are golden brown. If you have a candy or quick-read thermometer, the oil should be at 375°F.

12. Drizzle your caramel bacon topping all over those bad boys.

Yeah. A vegetarian gave me this idea! Go figure.

• Difficulty:
  Easy
• Preparation Time:
  Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 5 min

Don’t be scared. I know this sounds overwhelming. It may seem overwhelming for multiple reasons. Making your own butter? Sounds ridiculous. Bacon in your butter? Sounds fantastically mind blowing that you probably can’t handle its awesomeness.

Don’t fret, young Republic of Baconites, this needs to be in everyone’s household. All you need is an electric mixer of some sort – a hand blender, a food processor or a stand mixer. Each work equally well. Heck, you could even do it by hand by shaking a jar. You’d get one hell of a workout, too!

But, seriously, this NEEDS to be in your house right now. Imagine spreading butter with a hint of bacon smokiness over your morning toast, or pancakes, or waffles or at dinner with your bread or on your sandwich or in any dish that you need butter in.

And if you’ve never tasted homemade butter by itself, this will be a truly magnificent treat – homemade butter has such subtlety that you can’t get in store-bought stuff. This is true household staple and only requires two ingredients!

Ingredients

4 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

2-3 cups Heavy Cream (Depending on how much butter you want to make)

Ice water, for rinsing

Directions

1. Grab your bacon strips and pulse them in your food processor to get nice tiny pieces…

2. … And fry those little guys until they’re crispy. DON’T DISCARD THE RENDERED FAT. WE WANT THAT!

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or regular bowl if you’re using a hand blender, or in your food processor) dump in all your cream.

4. Beat that stuff on high while slowly drizzling in your bacon and rendered fat for the first 25 seconds. Continue to beat your cream (with the whisk attachment) for somewhere in the range of 3-6 minutes until the milk separates from the fat.

This will go through a few stages: whipped cream, then stiff whipped cream, then somewhat of a scrambled egg texture, then all of a sudden the fat will separate. You’ll know its time when your stand mixer starts making a huge mess – I kept a towel over the opening of the stand mixer to prevent my counter being covered in buttermilk. Also, I switched to the paddle attachment at the end just to coax out the last bit of buttermilk.

5. Pour off the buttermilk from the fat. You can discard this if you want, but I highly recommend saving it and putting it in tomorrow’s pancakes or waffles. This will be the most delicious buttermilk you’ll ever have.

6. Add in about a quarter cup of ice-cold water (the colder the better) to the butter. Mix the butter around in the water with a fork or a spatula for a minute (I used both) to rinse the butter of any remaining buttermilk. Discard the water and repeat the process.

7. Continue to rinse with cold water until the water no longer turns cloudy. By taking out all the buttermilk from the butter, it removes the slight sour taste from the butter, and makes the butter last longer in the fridge.

8. Pack your butter into your favourite container and eat it on anything you could imagine.

• Difficulty:
  Easy
• Preparation Time:
  Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Breakfast is totally under appreciated. It is the most important meal of the day, but people tend to rush out of the house and substitute it with an energy bar, a glass of juice or nothing at all! I say we end this madness!

Bacon and eggs are the quintessential breakfast, but, to be frank, that’s kind of boring. How about we add a little flare? How bout we make it so that things can be prepped ahead of time? How bout we make it friggin’ delicious?! This might be a bit, bullish. But I am going to state that this is by far the Best Bacon and Eggs Recipe Ever! What I love about this recipe is you can substitute pretty much anything into it.

Ingredients

8 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

4 slices Dempster’s sliced bread (your choice)

150g Baby Spinach

4 Eggs

¼ cup Grated Gruyere

2 cloves Garlic

3 tbsp Olive Oil

Non-stick cooking spray

Salt and Pepper

Makes 4 Breakfast Cups

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F

2. Mince up your cloves of garlic well and toss them into a large pan or wok with your olive oil. Fry that garlic until it turns golden and fragrant.

3. Throw in your spinach and cover with a lid. I said 150g because that’s how much was listed on my package of spinach. Just cook the whole bag/package. It cooks down to nothing, I swear.

4. While you’re spinach is doing its thing, go ahead and fry your 8 strips of bacon. But WAIT. Don’t cook them all the way through. Cool them until they’ve released a little bit of fat and are still very soft. 5 minutes, tops.

5. Take the lid off your spinach. Everything should have wilted by now. Even if it didn’t, continue to stir it up until everything is cooked. Add a pinch of salt and black pepper and set it aside.

Tip – everything I’ve done up until now (incuding par-cooking the bacon) can be done ahead of time. The rest of the recipe is just assembly and baking. Please don’t preheat your oven the day before, though.

6. Spray your muffin tin with cooking spray, then place 4 rounds of bread into the bottom of your muffin tins.

7. Add some shredded gruyere

8. Put some spinach down.

9. Line the perimeter of the cups with 2 strips of bacon.

10. Carefully crack an egg in the middle.

11. Top with more cheese (of course, more cheese)

12. Pop them in the oven for about 8 minutes, or until the whites have gone…. White. You can leave them in longer if you like your yolks more firm.

13. Serve with an extra shredding of gruyere and any leftover spinach.

This twist on a classic breakfast will be sure to impress your girlfriend and is easy enough to make her think you are a master chef.

What do you think? Best Bacon and Eggs Recipe ever?

• Difficulty:
  Easy
• Preparation Time:
  Prep Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 15 mins

Yes. You read that correctly; a perfect filet mignon is EASY! (Cooking these Bacon and Eggs is actually harder) Just follow the steps below and get perfect results EVERY time.

When you’re dealing with such a glorious (and expensive) cut of meat, you don’t want to complicate things. It’s expensive for a reason – because it’s delicious! We just want to enhance it.

How do we do that? Bacon, of course. Couple that with a simple seasoning and some vegetables of choice and you’ve got a meal fit for a king.

I decided to throw together some sautéed pearl onions and shitake mushrooms in rosemary red wine reduction over top, plus some goat cheese mashed potatoes on the side, but you can put anything you like! If you want the detailed steps on how to make those, just ask!

Ingredients

3 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

3 pieces Filet Mignon

3 tbsp Olive Oil

3 tbsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1 tbsp Salt

Directions

1. Grab a plate and season it. Yes, we’re seasoning the plate, not the meat! Add your olive oil, salt and black pepper and mix it around.

2. Wrap each one of your filets with a strip of bacon. No toothpick necessary. It will hold together on its own.

3. Rub your steaks in your seasoned plate. Get them all seasoned up nicely. All over. All sides. Nice and seasoned. Anybody that tells you not to salt your steaks before you grill them because they’ll “dry-out” is full of you-know-what. The only way you can dry out a steak is if you submerge it in a tub of salt and let it sit for a month. That’s not going to happen here.

4. Now here’s the most important part of the whole process: Wait. Let it sit for at LEAST a half hour. I waited for about an hour. Not only will this let the seasonings penetrate the steak, it is EXTREMELY important for the steak to be room temperature before we cook it. Since this is such a thick cut of meat, cooking it cold will mean it will be burnt on the outside, and raw on the inside. If the steak is at room temperature we will get a much more even temperature profile through the meat.

5. After we’ve waited for the steak to come to temperature, we can now throw it on the grill. Get your grill nice and hot. Preheat it on high for about 20 minutes. The perfect grilling process is three simple steps:

The Sear: Over high heat, grill the steaks on each side for three minutes with the lid closed.

The Roast: After you’ve completed the sear, turn your burners down to medium or medium-low and cook your steaks for an additional 3-4 minutes per side for a beautiful pink medium. (A couple minutes less for medium rare, a couple minutes more for medium well. Well done is a sin)

The Rest: After you’ve cooked your steak, you need to wait! If you cut into it right away, all the juices will run out and you’ll be left with a dry mess. Let the steak sit for five or ten minutes to let the juices redistribute. It will seem like five hours, but it will be worth it.

6. Top with your veg, taters on the side, and melt into your chair as the steak melts in your mouth. You can thank me later.

Chicken Fried Bacon’s Deliciousness Helped Make Bacon Popular

A lot of things have made bacon as popular as it is today. But some of bacon’s current success is due to a particular dish: chicken fried bacon.

Today, I thought I’d give you a peek into where this dish came from, how it grew in popularity and what exactly “chicken fried bacon” is. The crazy and mouthwatering details follow after the jump.

Chicken Fried Bacon: The Basics

Chicken Fried Bacon is exactly what it sounds like. To make it, you dip bacon in chicken-flavoured batter and then deep fry it. It’s usually served with “white” gravy – the creamy country gravy you see served with a lot of southern dishes.

Chicken Fried Bacon was invented by Frank Sodolak at his restaurant, Sodolak’s Original Country Inn.

Sodolak is no longer sure of when he invented it, but it was apparently created at some point in the late 90s. He was fooling around with the deep fryer one night and putting stuff into it (I have a feeling that this is how most major world-changing discoveries are made). At one point, he threw in some strips of bacon.

And voila, chicken-fried bacon!

Chicken Fried Bacon: The How To

The exact method of preparation that Sodolak uses is as follows: he takes some uncooked bacon and then dips it twice in a prepared mixture of flour and milk. Then he puts these slices in his frying apparatus for about three to four minutes. After that, he takes it out and serves it with a bowl of country gravy.

Just a note, though: Frank Sodolak serves this dish – several strips of deep-fried bacon – as an appetizer.

Chicken Fried Bacon and the Bacon Revolution

Chicken fried bacon may have been a 90s invention, but its real popularity began in the mid 2000s. In about 2006, it exploded in popularity, due partially to the video below. In it, Frank Sodolak talks about creating chicken fried bacon. You also get a whole bunch of shots of chicken fried bacon and people enjoying the chicken fried bacon. It’s pretty mesmerizing.

Since the spread of this video, chicken fried bacon has become a popular dish. In 2008, it won the Texas State Fair for “Best Tasting” dish. As well, there are many restaurants around the U.S. that have been inspired by the video, and have started serving it. In fact, the infographic from a few days ago suggests that this dish has been one of the main trends that helped spark the renaissance of bacon.

But What Does it Taste Like?

The general consensus is that chicken fried bacon tastes pretty darned good. Sodolak says that some people at his restaurant only eat two servings of it as a meal, rather than as just an appetizer.

A reviewer of Sodolak’s restaurant says that, “The taste is rather subtle — a more peppery bacon would probably work out wonderfully — and the strips are surprisingly light on your stomach.” Some folks might have listened to this advice: the chicken fried bacon that won the Texas State Fair was a pepper variety.

What do you think of chicken fried bacon? Do you think you would ever make it at home?

There are dozens of variations of the Chicken Fried Bacon recipe in every family’s kitchen and restaurant. But here we introduce two great recipes that help bring the flavor of smoked meat to a new level.

Let’s go with them!

#1. Chicken Fried Bacon Recipe Supreme

• Difficulty:
• Easy
• Preparation Time:
  20 Minutes

I have a friend from Texas, and she told me that she was making “Chicken Fried Steak” one night for her boyfriend. Obviously, I asked “What the heck is Chicken Fried Steak?!” To make a long story short, she explained that it was a tenderized steak that was dipped in batter and deep fried like chicken, hence chicken fried. She went on to explain that “anything could be chicken fried”, which got me thinking… what about bacon?

Chicken Fried Bacon needs something to go with it, though. You could make traditional southern gravy to top it, yes, but I was thinking something along the lines of another meat to compliment it. If I can do Chicken fried Bacon, what about Bacon Fried Chicken. Imagine: Chicken Fried Bacon, with Bacon Fried Chicken. Stay tuned for the details of the latter, soon.

Now this recipe couldn’t be easier. Make the batter, dip the bacon in the batter, and fry it. Here we go!

Ingredients

For Batter:

15 Strips Maple Leaf Bacon

1 ½ cups All Purpose flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 cup buttermilk

2 Eggs

1 tbsp Cayenne Pepper

½ tbsp. Chilli Powder

1 tbsp Paprika

Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Like I said, this dish is SUPER easy. Combine all your dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk them together until they are combined nicely.

2. Add your eggs and your milk to the mixture and continue to whisk until all the lumps have gone and the mixture is smooth. Let it stand for 5-10 minutes.

3. Once the batter has rested, dip a strip of bacon in, swirl it around and then throw it in a pan of vegetable oil or a deep fryer at 350°F. Now don’t literally throw it. You’ll burn yourself, and then probably sue me. So here I am saying it, don’t literally throw it – now you can’t sue, haha!

4. Fry the bacon for 10 minutes, until the outside is crispy and brown.

Eat the crispy bacony goodness.

#2. Bacon Fried Chicken Recipe Stuffed with Kindness

• Difficulty:
• Easy
• Preparation Time:
  Over Night Prep. 30 minutes cook

In Chicken Fried Bacon Recipe Supreme recipe, I introduced you all to the magic of Chicken Fried Bacon. I also alluded to the possibility of combining it with something equally as wonderful – Bacon Fried Chicken.

In this, we are using only the fat from the bacon to fry the chicken. Does that mean we are not using the bacon meat itself? Hell no! That would be a travesty punishable by lethal injection (don’t think the republic passed that law yet).

When I was researching the best way to prepare this dish, I came across a recipe from a place called Cap’n Charlie’s. After reading through the details, I knew I had to use it. It was perfect. They named it their “Bits-of-Bacon Fried Chicken”. The recipe is designed such that not only are you using ONLY the bacon fat to fry the chicken, the little bits of bacon will adhere themselves to the outside of the pieces of chicken – a crispy bacon crust, if you will.

A word of WARNING: you must be gentle when frying your chicken. I was not, and I didn’t get a nice even bacon-crust on all my pieces of chicken. So learn from me, treat your chicken with care. Love your chicken. Love your chicken like you love your mother…or your bacon.

Ingredients

12 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

3 Maple Leaf Prime Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

1 cup Buttermilk

1 Egg yolk

1 cup All Purpose flour

1 tbsp Cayenne Pepper

Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Cut chicken breasts into strips, kind of like chicken fingers. What am I talking about, these are exactly like chicken fingers.

2. In a resealable plastic bag, put in your buttermilk and egg yolk. Shake it up to break the egg yolk and distribute it throughout the milk, then throw in your chicken pieces. Shake it up again to make sure everything is coated and whack it in the fridge.

3. Marinate your chicken for at least an hour. Overnight is best.

4. Once your chicken is ready, take it out of the fridge and dredge each piece in flour that’s been seasoned with cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper. Set this aside.

5. Dice bacon into very small pieces. Place this diced bacon in cold frying pan and spread it out over the surface of the pan. Place chicken on top of bed of bacon and fry slowly until chicken is cooked and the outside is crispy. Now this is going to take a little bit. Probably at least 15 minutes, depending on the size of your chicken pieces. But just remember, be gentle. Turn your chicken gently.

6. Once the chicken is done (you might have to sacrifice a piece or two to check the doneness), dry everything on some paper towel, then serve alongside your Chicken Fried Bacon.

Is there any match better than Bacon Fried Chicken with Chicken Fried Bacon?

• Difficulty:
  Easy
• Preparation Time:
  Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 10 min

I’m telling ya, salad is making a comeback this summer. As long as I keep pairing them with bacon, I don’t know how they could go wrong.

This recipe is a Momma Chef Bacon special. She made this for me when I came to visit last week. It was quite a scorcher outside so she wasn’t in the mood to get the oven or stove going for more than a pot of water (or bacon, there’s always time for bacon). Everything else is cool, crisp and refreshing. Great for a side dish or a full meal! Now I forgot to add in the onion when I photographed this, but it makes a great addition to the dish.

Also, the white vinegar gives a great tang that isn’t there without it. You might be sceptical, but it’s a necessary ingredient.

Ingredients

8 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

1 lb Pasta (Fuscilli or Rotini)

2 tins Tuna (in oil)

¼ cup Mayo

3 tbsp White Vinegar

1 Pepper

2 stalks Celery

2 Carrots

½ Red Onion

3 tbsp Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Get the pot of salted water on the stove. Bring that bad boy to a boil.

2. Cut your bacon into strips again and fry ‘em up! Childsplay! Well, not really. Get your kid away from the stove. Reserve the fried bacon on a paper towel and leave it to cool.

3. Grab your pepper and celery and give them a good wash. Dice them up along with the carrots and onion.

4. I was able to dice up everything nice and fine before my water started to boil. Aim for that!

5. Grab your pasta. I used fuscilli. You can use whatever you like. Short works best here. I like the curls of the fuscilli so everything in the salad can get in between and mix together. Boil according to your package instructions. When it’s done, drain and toss in a bit of olive oil and leave to cool. The olive oil is so the pasta doesn’t stick together.

6. In a large bowl, empty your cans of tuna. I used the tuna in oil so it wasn’t as dry as the one in water.

7. Smash this up with a fork nice and fine.

8. Add your mayo and vinegar. Give that a good mix.

9. Stir in your veggies that you’ve diced nice and fine.

10. Mmmmm …Wonderful vegetables.

11. Grab your cooled pasta and mix that together with your tuna/veg mix, season with salt and pepper and add in your bacon. Plate this, go out on your patio and enjoy!

Is this not the best Pasta Salad Recipe you have ever seen? What other pasta recipes do you like or do you think I should have added something else to the mix?