Maple Bacon: A Brunch Delight

This Maple Bacon recipe will wow your brunch guests. With just four ingredients, it's one of the best and easiest brunch recipes you can create in your home kitchen.

Eggs, Maple Bacon and PotatoesPhoto by2foodtrippers

There’s nothing like throwing a brunch for friends and family but it can be a challenge to pull off well.

It’s not like you can just make one showcase dish and then serve it to a round of oohs and ahhs. Brunch requires a diversity of dishes that includes eggs, breads and other starches. The number of options can be overwhelming.

Protein takes a starring role in most brunch menus.

Besides omelets and other egg dishes, you can make sausage, ham and our personal favorite - bacon. Making bacon is so easy. You just pop it into a 400°F/205°C oven and you’re good to go.

While thick, perfectly cooked bacon may make people happy for an hour, it's probably not enough to wow your guests. After all, you want to give them a brunch they’ll remember for the rest of the day and beyond.

Enter Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar

There's little doubt that Maple Brown Sugar Bacon will wow your guests.

In our recipe, the fat from rendered bacon mixes with crunchy bits of caramelized sugar and maple syrup to become more than the sum of the parts. The resulting amped-up bacon will take your taste buds from acoustic to electric.

Be warned. This recipe may become a go-to dish for all future brunches. Either way, there's no doubt that it gives your brunch guests a little something extra to remember.

The Challenge

Sugar transforms from deep caramel to pitch black coal when it burns. So, if you're not careful, it only takes a minute or two before amber brown bacon turns into an acrid shoe.

Luckily, the 2foodtrippers test kitchen has come to the rescue!

We’ve conducted multiple tests to create a great recipe that produces luscious maple sugar bacon without burning. The key is to know when to brush the bacon with the maple brown sugar solution while the bacon is cooking. Don't worry - that step is in our recipe.

Ingredients

Our recipe only requires the following four ingredients:

• ⅔ pound bacon (cut into 8 thick slices)
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup (grade A)
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Bacon

We use American-style smoked pork belly bacon with plenty of fat on it. Specifically, we buy an artisan pork product and have it sliced about ¼” thick.

Pro Tip: Beware of the product they call bacon in countries like England. That product, which is from the pork back, is way too lean for this recipe.

Dark Brown Sugar

We always attempt to achieve maximum flavor in our recipes.

Thanks to the addition of molasses, brown sugar's deep caramelized flavors provide an added dimension to this dish. Magic happens when brown sugar combines with the fat flavors from the bacon.

Maple Syrup

We use grade A maple syrup from Canada and we highly recommend that you do the same.

You'll want to stay away from store brands that are too thick. Also stay away from grade B maple syrup. Both syrup products cook faster and may burn.

Salt

While bacon carries a lot of salt, there’s something about adding salt to sugar that electrifies this dish and brings it alive. You could get away with not adding salt but the added salt brings big time flavor.

How to Make Maple Bacon

This recipe proves that great cooking can be easy.

In a nutshell, we first prepare a brown sugar maple mixture. We then place the bacon in the oven and apply the mixture at a specific point in the cooking process.

Read on for the step-by-step instructions.

The first step is to preheat your oven to 400°F/205°C. At the same time, you'll want to mix the maple syrup, brown sugar and salt with a tablespoon, making sure to break up any large clumps of brown sugar.

Place the cold bacon on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Place the bacon in the center of your preheated oven.

Once the bacon has cooked for 7 minutes, open the oven and brush the maple mixture liberally all over the top. There’s no need to flip the bacon and brush both sides since the solution will run off the top and coat the bottom.

Place the coated bacon back in the oven and cook for 5 to 6 minutes until the bacon is a deep amber brown.

Pro Tip: It’s important to keep an eye on your bacon especially once the maple brown sugar solution is brushed on. You don't want to fail the burning challenge.

Once you pull the pan out of the oven, set the bacon on a cooling rack placed on top of a sheet pan. You'll want to let the bacon rest here before you serve it to your guests.

Try not to eat the Maple Bacon before your guests arrive. This is the recipe's second challenge.

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