Tips Archive

If I asked you to close your eyes right now and picture someone preparing bacon, what would you imagine? For the vast majority of you, I bet that you are seeing in your mind’s eye someone heating a skillet and laying the streaky bacon strips in the pan, the fat bubbling and the sweet fat crisping up while you watch. I’m sorry, was that your stomach growling or mine?

Though this might be the most common conception of hoe bacon is made, there is another, equally delicious method for making bacon: baking it in the oven. While less popular, and less deeply ingrained on the average bacon-lover’s consciousness, this method is just as effective as sizzling bacon up in a pan. Continue reading this article…

Since a lot of this blog’s audience is Canadian and we have some Americans, we often get questions about this mysterious food product that circulates North of the 49th parallel, forever out of reach of our American bacon friends’ reach. What, exactly, is Canadian bacon?

Unfortunately, making things worse for our American friends is the fact that they have something already in their grocery departments that makes the absurd claim that it is Canadian bacon, but it’s actually something else entirely. Today, on the Republic of Bacon, we delve into this matter and try to pull out the juicy truth of it all. Follow us after the break as we tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Canadian bacon. Continue reading this article…

If you are a dude who is reading this who has a significant other in his life, you’ve probably messed up Valentine’s Day somehow (please don’t let me be the only one!). Maybe the reservations for your restaurant didn’t work out. Maybe you bought flowers she’s allergic to (how was I suppose to know?). Or maybe you just forgot about the whole thing (I was eating bacon, I promise). Whatever you did, you probably need to make it up to your significant other. How can you do that? By buying some bacon-flavoured candy. My best bacon-candy suggestions follow after the jump.

Continue reading this article…

In my previous posts about all the different bacon cooking methods, (Cooking Bacon in the Microwave, How to Bake Bacon in the Oven, Use a Machine Gun to Cook Bacon) I forgot to mention a popular one that actually has many advantages to it: making bacon on the George Foreman Grill (or similar home grilling machines). Why is cooking on this kinda awesome? Are there any drawbacks? Today, we’ll talk about how this underrated cooking method could actually save your bacon.

Continue reading this article…

The big Holiday dinner is one time we really get to indulge. It’s also a time to pull out all the stops and impress. And bacon is always a great way to impress – it certainly impresses me! I’ve been looking for ways to add some bacon to your Holiday dinner, and I think I’ve come up with four great ways.

Bacon-wrapped Turkey

Image Provided by Chow

I think that if you are going to serve turkey, there’s no other way to serve it than wrapped in bacon. You don’t have to do anything special to the turkey – just wrap it in bacon before you cook it in the oven. The bonus to this method is that the bacon’s natural juices keep the turkey deliciously moist. With nearly magical powers like this, there’s always more room for bacon during the Holidays!

The folks at Chow have created this video to show you how to make a bacon-wrapped turkey dinner with pear gravy. They cook their turkey a bit first, but you don’t need to. Just watching it, I already feel a bacon-and-turkey coma starting to take over my brain. [Cue sounds of loud salivation.] Continue reading this article…

In olden days, when cooks used to be more careful about throwing anything away, a common sight on the kitchen counter next to the stove was a coffee can to hold bacon grease. Frugal (and smart!) cooks would then use the grease in various ways in their cooking.

Nowadays, most people don’t even think about keeping their bacon grease (Facebook comments are going to be buzzing about that statement). But since pouring it down the drain can clog it up, it’s probably a good idea to think about storing it, especially if you cook as much bacon as I do.

If you start storing your bacon grease, you should keep it in the fridge instead of on the counter. In the fridge, it’ll last for six months. If you freeze it, it will last longer – up to nine months. But trust me: if you do start keeping your bacon grease, you’ll find so many uses it for that you’ll probably run out faster than you can keep replenishing it. Continue reading this article…

Like any food that needs to be kept fresh, you should always be careful storing raw bacon. Even if you don’t get sick, storing bacon wrong can definitely change its flavour – and you don’t want that. So here are some tips to remember when storing bacon. Continue reading this article…

We’ve already discussed the benefits of using stainless steel or non-stick pans when cooking your bacon, or whether baking or frying bacon is better. But what about cooking bacon in other ways? For example, what about cooking bacon in your microwave?

Now, before you go nuts – hear me out. Microwaving food may not be the most gourmet form of cooking, but it does have a few benefits. Here are a few off the top of my head. Continue reading this article…

We’ve discussed baking bacon, but many of us still like to cook our bacon the old fashioned way: frying. But when you are frying, what are the best cooking utensils to use? There are a lot of options, so today we thought we’d cover the general advantages of two major types of cookware: non-stick and stainless steel frying pans. Depending on how you cook, one of these two types might be for you. Continue reading this article…

We get a lot of responses on our Facebook page to the baked bacon post. One of my favourites was Sarah Bakker, who bakes her bacon with a special addition: “Baked for sure! And the brown sugar makes it that much better!” (Karen Sinclair also bakes with brown sugar.)

That’s one of the benefits of baking bacon that I neglected to mention (I know I am not perfect, my father reminds me everyday) – the fact that if you bake, you can either sprinkle something onto your bacon before you bake it, or that you can marinade it. This can be more difficult if you are frying. And as Sarah points out, adding something sweet, like brown sugar, can really compliment the salty flavour of the bacon. Continue reading this article…