Cured pork belly, usually smoked, and the difference between good and bad is almost entirely whether water was pumped into it. Supermarket bacon that shrinks to half its size and floods the pan was sold to you as brine.
American bacon is the belly — the same slab as pork belly, cured and smoked and sliced across into rashers, which is why it has alternating stripes of fat and muscle. British and Irish back bacon is cut from the loin with a tail of belly attached, so it's much leaner with a round eye of meat. Canadian bacon is loin only, effectively a lean ham. Slab bacon is uncut belly, which lets you cut lardons at whatever thickness you want and is generally better value. Pancetta is the same belly cured without smoke.
Curing is salt plus nitrite. The salt lowers water activity so bacteria can't multiply; sodium nitrite — pink curing salt, or celery powder in products labelled uncured, which is chemically the same thing — prevents Clostridium botulinum, fixes the pink colour and produces the flavour people recognise as cured. The industrial shortcut is pumping brine into the belly to add weight, sometimes 15% or more, which is why cheap bacon releases a flood of white liquid and shrinks dramatically: you're boiling out water you paid for. Dry-cured bacon, rubbed rather than injected, loses weight during curing rather than gaining it, and renders cleanly.
Starting cold lets the fat render out gradually before the meat browns, which gives evenly crisp bacon rather than curled strips with raw fat.
HowLay strips in an unheated pan, then turn the heat to medium-low. Eight to twelve minutes, turning occasionally, pouring off fat as it accumulates. Drain on a rack, not paper, so the underside stays crisp.
The only sane method for more than four strips — no turning, no splatter, and uniform results.
How400°F on a wire rack over a foil-lined sheet, fifteen to twenty minutes. No flipping. The rack keeps it out of the rendered fat.
It's one of the easiest cures to do at home and the result is dramatically better than injected supermarket bacon.
HowEquilibrium cure a belly at 2% salt, 0.25% pink salt #1 and 1% sugar by weight, bagged and refrigerated seven days, turning daily. Rinse, dry overnight uncovered, then smoke at 200°F to 150°F internal, or roast at the same temperature.
Cutting your own from a slab gives thick batons that render and crisp on the outside while staying meaty inside — impossible with thin rashers.
HowCut quarter-inch batons, render from cold in a dry pan eight to ten minutes until the fat is out and the edges are brown. Keep the fat.
Two things produce the sad, shrunken, curled strips people accept as normal. Most supermarket bacon has been injected with brine — often 12-15% added water — so when it hits heat that water floods out, the pan drops below browning temperature, and the bacon simmers in a white liquid before it ever crisps, ending up half its original size. The tell is that white foam in the pan and a package that feels wet. Dry-cured bacon costs more per pound and gives more bacon. The second error is starting in a hot pan: bacon fat needs time to render out, and high heat browns the meat before the fat has gone, leaving strips that are simultaneously burnt and flabby. Cold pan, medium-low, patience.
Look for dry-cured or dry-rubbed on the label, and a package with no liquid pooling in it. Uncured on American labels is a legal term meaning the nitrite came from celery powder rather than a bottle — chemically identical, so it's not a meaningful health distinction. Thick-cut renders better and is harder to ruin. Slab bacon is usually cheaper per pound and lets you cut what you want. Ask about the wood if it's smoked; applewood and hickory are noticeably different. Good butcher bacon costs perhaps twice supermarket bacon and gives you roughly twice as much cooked weight, so the real difference is smaller than it looks.
Doneness: Cook to your preference — chewy around 8 minutes, crisp around 12 in a pan or 18-20 in a 400°F oven. If curing your own, take it to 150°F internal. Store cured bacon refrigerated up to a week once opened, or freeze in portions.
No. Uncured on a US label means no synthetic sodium nitrite was added, but the product is almost always cured with celery powder or juice, which is naturally high in nitrate that converts to nitrite. The chemistry in the finished bacon is the same, and celery-cured products sometimes contain more nitrite than conventionally cured ones. It's a labelling rule, not a compositional difference.
Added water. Most supermarket bacon is injected with brine to increase weight, and that water boils out in the pan — which is also the white foam. A dry-cured bacon loses weight during curing rather than gaining it, so a pound of it yields substantially more cooked bacon than a pound of pumped bacon. Check the package for pooled liquid before buying.
Keep it. Strained into a jar it lasts months in the fridge and is excellent for frying eggs, roasting potatoes, starting a pot of greens, or making cornbread. A pound of bacon renders a substantial amount and pouring it away is discarding the most useful by-product in the kitchen.