The old joke about someone being 'vegetarian except for bacon' is a bit stale but nonetheless, it harbors some truth. Bacon is one of the most missed foods when people give up eating meat and often the first one back (the "gateway meat"). Still, most vegetarians I know have found many inventive ways to add bacon's delicious qualities into their food without using actual bacon itself. For me, bacon's appeal is the coming together of three things: fat, smoke and salt. I suggest addressing each of these when searching for a way to add bacon-y goodness to vegetarian and vegan foods. Read on for several suggestions.
Of course, it's important to note that vegetarians and vegans aren't the only ones who forgo bacon. People who keep kosher cannot eat bacon as noted by joyofkosher who requested this topic.
SMOKINESS
First, let's look at smokiness. There are many delicious ways to bring smokiness to vegetarian dishes and, in my opinion, adding fake vegan bacon isn't one of them. Instead, try one of the following:
• Grill some of your ingredients. Vegetables such as peppers, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, onions hold up really well on the grill. Tofu, and tempeh benefit, too, from a short time on the grill, as well as mushrooms.
• You can also invest in a home smoker or, on a smaller scale, turn your wok into a smoker (this CHOW video shows you how.)
• If you're not vegan, add smoked cheese, such as smoked Gouda.
• Chipotle chili peppers add a wonderful smokey notes. They are available in cans, usually packed in adobo sauce, and in a dried powder form. Smoked paprika is a great substitute if you don't want the heat from the chills.
• Liquid Smoke is another easy ingredient, although it is somewhat controversial as its safety is in debate. Liquid Smoke is basically the condensation from the steam from smoking wood, which is captured and cooled, and turned into a liquid. The controversy is around whether the degree of cancer-causing compounds normally found in wood char is at a safe level in Liquid Smoke. Some claim it is so small, it is not a risk, while others refuse to use it.
SALT AND FAT
But, as previously stated, smokiness isn't the only thing bacon adds to a dish. If you are leaving bacon out of a recipe to make it vegetarian/vegan/kosher, be sure you have plenty of salt and fat as well as one of the substitutes mentioned above. There is no hard and fast rule for this, just use your tastebuds and adjust accordingly. Parmesan cheese is a good vegetarian addition, as it provides the fat and the salt as well as lots of umami, which bacon also has in spades.
TEXTURE
Finally, the other element bacon offers is texture, that delicious combination of crunch and chew that's hard to duplicate. One thing you can do is an old hippie trick: Sauté finely crumbled tempeh in a fair amount of coconut oil until the tempeh is brown and starting to crisp. Remove from the heat and let cook slightly, then splash in a little soy sauce. There should be enough residual heat from the pan that the soy sauce starts to bubble up and is quickly absorbed by the tempeh. A pinch or two of smoked paprika, added after the soy has been absorbed, will bring some smoke flavor and voila! You have vegan bacon bits!
Another trick I often use for smokiness, fat, salt and texture, is to sauté rough breadcrumbs in olive oil and butter until they start to brown. Then I add salt and smoked paprika, giving everything a final stir and removing it from the heat. I scatter these across the top of mac'n'cheese, vegetable gratins and other casseroles. They're also delicious on a salad. Just be sure to tear your bread into small, wispy chunks so that some areas crisp up and brown while the other absorb the fat and you'll end up with that unbeatable combination of crispy and chewy, fatty, smokey and salty. Drool.
What are your favorite ways of adding the peculiarly fatty, salty, addictive smokiness of bacon... without the bacon?
Related: Vegetarian (Except for Bacon)
It's Reader Request Week at The Kitchn! This post was requested by JOYOFKOSHER.
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Or you can make shiitake mushroom 'bacon', you'll find videos on YouTube, I make it using large portobello mushrooms and my old-favorite bacon flavorings (brown sugar & black pepper is one). You have to experiment to come up with the right technique to satisfy your fattiness & flavor preferences but I've figured out how to make it work for me. This is how well it works for a former bacon-addict --- I don't even crave pig anymore.
And, um... Parmesan cheese isn't vegetarian, indeed most cheeses aren't vegetarian, one has to check the rennet that's used and I have yet to find a real Parmesan-style cheese that didn't use animal rennet. Vella's dry monterey jack cheese is a good vegetarian substitute for Parmesan. Slightly different flavor but the same grating qualities. Costs nearly the same arm & a leg as Parmigiano does too ($20-25/lb).
Ooh - I'm a vegetarian (have been for 30 years) and the one thing I miss is bacon! I've come up with some tricks of my own, but you seem to have covered most of them! Spanish smoked paprika is the number one bacon-y ingredient, but I've used smoked gouda, too.
I made this flakin bacon - my version of fake bacon. Rolled long and thin and lightly fried in olive oil. Delicious - crispy, smoky, salty!
Another thing I like to do is cut potatoes into small pieces and roast them with a smoky/spicy mix of herbs and spices. They add a nice baconish crunch to greens dishes, like this one with collards.
There's also Baconnaise, which I love as a spread on sandwiches and burgers, and Bacon Salt. Both are vegetarian and kosher.
J&D's Bacon Seasoning Salts and other vegeterian, kosher bacon-flavoured products (baconnaise, popcorn, bbq rub, croutons...). So good : http://www.jdfoods.net/
Black cardamom is good for adding smoky flavor, too. They're strong - one or two pods in a pot of stew or soup will do it.
I made my own bacon a year or so back for a party, and made veggie bacon for those who do not partake, from long slices of japanese eggplant. It was a reasonable success, but doesn't keep its crunch for very long.
Take 1/3" thick slices of peeled eggplant from the skinniest japanese eggplants you can find, so that they're sort of like oversized slices of bacon. I smoked them for about an hour on a Weber Smokey Mountain over hardwood and charcoal (where they shrunk significantly), then fried the slices (in vegetable oil, although the temptation to use bacon fat was strong), after dusting in a little flour to increase the crispiness. The long lines of seeds helped with the bacony appearance.
If you eat dairy, smoked cheddar is great for smoke, salt, and fat. I was thinking of making veggie BLTs with it this week (er, CLTs?).
If you don't mind a good helping of MSG, Bacon Salt is pretty amazing and completely pig-free.
I'm a fan of using smoked sea salt on top of any bacon-friendly dish; that usually hits the salt/smoke button for me. I remember enjoying bacon sometimes when I ate meat, but I don't think of it as a huge loss not to eat it now.
Goya makes a product called "Sabor de Jamon" which next to the Sazon and Salad seasonings and Adobo that they make. Adds a great smoky flavor with just one packet and is vegetarian and quite inexpensive. I always add it to pressure cooked beans and split pea soup.
Smoked sea salt and black cardamom sound amazing! So does crispy smoked eggplant.
I'm a big fan of goya products, too - I'll have to look for sabor de jamon.
Good article! I get pretty tired of chipotle, so I'll have to try smoked paprika. I miss bacon the most on breakfast sandwiches. What I often do is marinate and grill tomatoes - you get the color and the smoky-sweet-salty taste. Unfortunately, none of the texture.
I'll also have to experiment with tempeh. A long time ago, I tried cooking with it and it turned out terrible. But this was when I was first learning to cook. Can anyone recommend a particular brand that you like?
The Goya site lists the sabor de jamon as:
Salt, Monosodium Glutamate, Artificial Ham Flavor, Hydrolized Vegetable Protein, Silica (Anti-Caking Agent)
I'd be sketchy about saying it's vegetarian, without knowing more about what constitutes "artificial ham flavor".
Toasted pine nuts. Works every time.
Bacon Salt Natural. Kosher, vegetarian, no artificial flavors.
I sometime use smoke dried tomatoes from Boggy Creek Farm in Texas. I mail order them and they are fantastic for adding that smokey flavor!