A salty, sweet jam made with BACON as the main ingredient.
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: $$
Time: 20 minutes (including prep)
Watch me prep, cook, and serve this jam in Episode 1 of Michelle’s Pop Up Kitchen: Maple Bacon Bourbon Jam
Ingredient List:
- 1.5 – 2 lbs Bacon (I, of course, used 2 lbs)
- 1 Sweet Onion (about 1 cup)
- 1 Shallot
- 4 cloves of Garlic
- 1 teaspoon Smoked Paprika
- 1 teaspoon Chili Powder
- 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 cup Bourbon
- 1/2 cup Maple Syrup
- 1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
- Salt and Pepper to taste (optional)
Instructions:
Prep
- Dice the onion, shallot, and garlic into small pieces (keeping these ingredients separate)
- Slice bacon into chunky, bite-size pieces
- Bring a large-sized pan to medium heat on the stove (non-stick if you have it)
Cook
- Once the pan has heated up, add the bite-sized bacon pieces to fry ’em up
- When the bacon has finished cooking, remove the bacon from the pan, leaving about 1 of bacon fat in the pan
- Place bacon on paper towels to drain excess fat
- Return the pan to the stove with 1 tablespoon bacon fat
- Add the diced onion and shallot
- Once the onions and shallot have begun to caramelize (have turned golden in color), add 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika and 1 teaspoon chili powder
- Add dash of salt and pepper to taste (optional)
- Mix the onions and shallots with the added spices
- Add diced garlic garlic
- Stand back from the stove and *slowly* add 1/2 cup bourbon
- Add 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- Add 1/2 cup maple syrup
- Add 1/2 cup brown sugar
- Stir to allow brown sugar to dissolve
- Add fried bacon bits back to the pan
- Fold in all of the ingredients
- Turn stove on low to simmer (while simmering, the jam will begin to thicken up)
Eat
- Once the jam has reached your desired (thick, gooey) consistency, turn the stove off and serve!
This is a great breakfast or brunch item that any bacon lover will enjoy. As shown in the video, I simply served this jam on top a couple of toasted baguette slices. BUT I bet this would also go really good on some flatbread with a little bit of shaved parmesan, topped with arugula. mmmmmmm.
Definitely saving that idea for another recipe/video.
Thanks for reading!
Let me know in the comments what you think of this recipe or if you have any recipe requests you’d like me to share!
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The Parmesan and arugula thing sounds dee-lish! I thoroughly enjoyed it on a chocolate shortbread cookie- sweet, salty, buttery. MMM.
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