Holiday Candied Bacon Brittle (VIDEO Recipe) (2024)

FAQs

Do you need to refrigerate candied bacon? ›

The best practice for storing candied bacon is to keep it in the refrigerator. Before storing, let the caramelized bacon cool to room temperature. This helps keep condensation at bay when the meat is stored in the fridge, ensuring your delectable bacon stays crisp and delicious.

Candied bacon can be kept in the fridge for a few days and reheats well in a skillet over low heat. I don't think candied bacon is worth freezing, although if you made a huge batch you absolutely could. You could just want to make sure to freeze the strips individually so they didn't stick together.

Brown sugar and bacon. There are recipes around the web that call for other ingredients such as chili powder, cinnamon, maple syrup, pepper, even cayenne powder, but since I was making these for my boys, I wanted to keep it simple. But definitely feel free to add some spice to yours if you so desire.

Uncooked bacon

Unopened bacon may last roughly two weeks in the fridge and eight months in the freezer. Once the package has been opened, as long as it is well stored in a sealed container, uncooked bacon is good for a week. Sealed in an airtight plastic bag in the freezer, the bacon could last for about a month.

The general rule of food safety is to not let raw meat or cooked food sit out for more than 2 hours, and that rule applies to uncooked or cooked bacon. It's wise to be careful with uncooked pork products since they can harbor and grow bacterial pathogens like salmonella and trichinosis.

Meat and other foods with freezer burn might get a grainy texture or look dry and tough. You might find that freezer burn creates weird flavors, as well. This is because oxygen in the nearby air has pulled flavors and colors from your meat's tissue. Water molecules are in a solid state on the surface of your food.

Rancidity develops even in the freezer and the presence of the curing salts hastens its development. The Food Marketing Institute recommends that opened bacon not be frozen. Their recommendation is that unopened bacon only be frozen up to one month.

The health risk of bacon is largely to do with two food additives: potassium nitrate (also known as saltpetre) and sodium nitrite. It is these that give salamis, bacons and cooked hams their alluring pink colour.

“Mold — The white film could be mold on the surface if the product is packaged where oxygen can get to the surface (i.e., packaged in a jar, or non-vacuumed bulk pack), not vacuum packaged, nor backflushed with nitrogen. Mold requires oxygen to grow and will not grow if oxygen is excluded from the product.

Candied bacon is made in-house using Applewood-smoked bacon. It's then coated with caramelized brown sugar and finished with a hint of black pepper. We used a similar combination of flavors in our Candied Bacon Crackers.

Is candied bacon perishable? ›

Much like traditional bacon, it is best to store candied bacon in an airtight container in the refrigerator. While regular cooked bacon lasts only four to five days when stored in the fridge, candied bacon will last a little bit longer — up to three weeks.

Take the bacon home immediately and refrigerate it at 40°F or below. For shelf-stable, cooked bacon, store the product at 85°F or below. Refrigerate after opening. Observe the manufacturer's recommended "use-by" date.

The USDA recommends using dry-cured sliced bacon within ten days when unrefrigerated, and within four weeks if you keep it in the refrigerated. If the dry-cured bacon comes in a slab—the kind you slice yourself—it can last up to three weeks without the fridge, and four to six weeks in the fridge.

Refrigeration is optional for Bacon Up.

Bacon Up will change from solid to slushy to liquid (and back again) as its temperature rises (and falls). That's normal and does not reduce its quality. For long-term storage, we recommend keeping Bacon Up at temperatures below 80°F.