Spicy Candied Bacon

One way to pump up bacon to a sweet and spicy bit is to caramelize it into candied bacon. 

Making spicy candied bacon is just as easy as making bacon itself. Besides the bacon slices, you just need two other main ingredients: brown sugar and cayenne pepper. 

Ingredients: 

• Bacon (Thick cut is best)
• Brown sugar (Light brown is best)
• Cayenne Pepper
• (Olive oil for pan)

How to make it

Making caramelized bacon in the oven is fast and easy.  First, heat a drizzle of olive oil and butter in a pan. Coat the bacon slices in brown sugar and lay them out in a pan, slowing bringing them to simmer on medium heat. As the bacon cooks, mix it until each piece is coated in sugar glaze. Sprinkle with a dusting of cayenne pepper. Cook about 15 minutes, or until bacon is done.

With both this stove top method and the oven recipe below, you won’t need to drain the bacon over paper towels the way you would for regular bacon. That’s because the caramelized sugar makes the bacon sticky and gooey – you don’t want paper towel particles stuck to it. Instead give the bacon a nice shake when you remove it from the pan to remove excess oil.

Let your bacon sit for a few minutes before you eat it. As the bacon cools, it actually becomes more crisp. 

Try these other tasty bacon recipes:

• Bacon Jam
• Bacon Weave
• Honey Glazed Bacon
• Bacon Roses

The oven method

To make candied bacon, first, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Layout bacon on baking sheet – either on aluminum foil, parchment paper or a baking rack. Sprinkle each piece evenly with a thin layer of brown sugar

Sprinkle each piece with a dusting of cayenne pepper. Bake for about 35 minutes.

As your bacon cooks in the oven, keep an eye out that it doesn’t burn. Candied bacon can burn more easily because of the sugar.

One way to coat the bacon in sugar and cayenne is to combine those ingredients in a bowl, then toss with bacon. This will coat both sides of the bacon. If you do it this way, be sure to spray your foil or baking rack so the spicy candied bacon doesn’t stick to it. 

Other tips

You can make candied bacon without brown sugar by using a substitute like maple syrup or a jelly like pepper jelly. The sugar coating will create a similar glaze as brown sugar does.

To make candied bacon bits, you’ll need bacon, brown sugar, and cayenne. Coat the bacon with the brown sugar, then sprinkle a bit of cayenne. Then, cook the bacon in a frying pan on the stove top about 10 minutes or until desired crispiness. Let the bacon cool about 20 minutes and then chop it into bits.

Spicy candied bacon is delicious on its own, but you can also try a few other key ingredients to make different versions of this recipes. Along with light brown sugar and cayenne, you can add one or a combination of one of more the following for ingredients:  Pepper, maple syrup, bourbon, rice vinegar, sriracha, rosemary, or ground coffee beans

Or, instead of using brown sugar, try a jelly like hot pepper jelly. Coat each piece of bacon with a light layer of the jelly instead of brown sugar and then cook as you normally would.

You can use spicy candied bacon in a BLT sandwich, in a spicy Bloody Mary, as a side for breakfast, crumbled on a salad or for a Brie, Bacon and Apple Appetizer.

Storing Candied Bacon 

You can store candied bacon for about three weeks in the refrigerator. To store your candied bacon, let it fully cool. Then, wrap each piece in a wax paper and put all the pieces in a large storage bag. You cannot store your candied bacon at room temperature. So be sure to refrigerate your leftovers. (Candied bacon does not freeze well.)

You can serve candied bacon either warm or cold, but avoid serving it very hot. The candied bacon does need some time to cool so that the sugar coating can firm up. If the bacon is served too hot, the candied coating will be too gooey.