How to Cure Bacon

There is no secret recipe for best home-cured bacon. It’s all about the meat. Go buy the best, the freshest pork belly, sprinkle some salt and seasonings on it, vacuum seal and refrigerate. Three weeks later, you will have the best bacon you’ve ever had.

Bacon curing methods

There are three methods of curing bacon: pumping, dry curing, and immersion curing.

Commercial bacon producers use pumping as it’s the cheapest and the fastest method. Bacon is injected with a curing liquid and is rested for 6 to 24 hours before being heated and/or smoked. The injected liquid also adds weight to bacon, but it impacts the texture and taste.

Immersion curing is very similar to pumping, except bacon is left to cure in liquid for 2-3 days, then hung to dry.  This method is much slower than pumping, so it’s rarely used nowadays.

Dry curing is the method where salt, Cure #1, and spices are applied to pork belly pieces. The meat is then left to cure. This method, while the most time consuming, produces the tastiest bacon which has a deeper, more robust flavor profile. This is the best method for curing bacon at home.

Basic dry curing mix

The biggest challenge that I experienced when attempting my first cured bacon was deciding on the amount of salt to use. You want enough salt for bacon to cure properly and be safe to eat. But you also don’t want it to be overly salty. After trying a dozen of recipes from trusted sources I settled on Hector Kent’s formula from his Dry-Curing Pork: Make Your Own Salami, Pancetta, Coppa, Prosciutto, and More book. It uses 2.5% salt, which is a very reasonable amount. On top, it adds 2% maple syrup which adds the sweetness that makes the bacon taste even less salty. Overall, I found these proportions very good for my taste, except that I bumped the maple syrup to 2.5%. I think many will find the combination of salt and maple syrup very tasty.

By weighing out salt as a percentage of pork belly’s weight, unlike by covering bacon with salt and sugar liberally as some recipes recommend, you will ensure that you will never over-salt your bacon and that you won’t have to rinse off the curing mix at the end of curing.

Rinsing bacon at the end of curing is bad for two reasons: you won’t re-introduce any water back after spending weeks getting rid of it, and whatever seasonings you add to the curing mix won’t get washed off.

Additional Seasonings

While salt alone is enough to cure bacon, sugar or other sweeteners like maple syrup are added to balance out the harshness of the salt. You may also add black pepper, powdered garlic, onion, cayenne pepper, or red pepper flakes.  Some recipes I’ve seen add bay leaf, thyme, crushed juniper berries, black pepper, nutmeg, and other spices. The variations here are limitless.

Use of nitrites to cure bacon

Given how much conflicting and incorrect information is floating out there on the Internet about the use of nitrites and nitrates, I had to do some thorough research on this topic.

As was mentioned above, nitrates (Cure #2) are not allowed for curing bacon. Nitrates are only used for curing meats and sausages over long periods of time, weeks or months. Those include salami

Nitrites (Cure #1) are permitted but the amount of added sodium nitrite cannot exceed 200 parts per million (ppm). What does it mean, really? It means that you may add 1.45 grams or 0.05 ounces of Cure #1 per pound of pork belly (source: Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages). That’s about 1/3 teaspoon.

Do you need to use nitrite to cure bacon?

No, if you intend on keeping the bacon below 40F and cook it at above 200F. This includes pan-frying, baking, smoking at, say, 225F, etc.

Yes, if you plan on keeping it in a temperature range between 40F and 140F (also know as ‘danger zone’) for longer than 3 hours. For example, if you plan to cold smoke (below 80F) or low heat (130F-140F) smoke the bacon.

That said, Cure #1 also improves bacon’s color and flavor. Fried bacon that was cured with salt only, will have a greyish color, while the one cure with Cure #1 will have the reddish color that we are very familiar with. Personally, I always use Cure #1.

The meat

The fresher the meat, the better the bacon will be. If possible, use pasture-raised heritage pork. Heritage pork (on the left below) has a richer color and a much better flavor than bacon made with commodity pork (on the right below). Making bacon from Berkshire pork was an eye-opener for me. The most apparent difference was in the texture. It’s not stringy like store-bought bacon. It’s not chewy. Bacon made with Berkshire pork had a kind of brittle texture that practically began to disintegrate and melt away as soon as you put it in your mouth.

Uncooked fat was pure white, dry and firm, as opposed to soft, mushy and wet on the store-bought one. The differences are staggering.

There was more fat in it than I would have liked, but the cooked fatty part was tasty. Very tasty. I baked the bacon and served with eggs and sourdough biscuits. It was outstanding.

I purchased the pork belly from Murray’s Farm, who raise happy heritage piggies. You may want to check out pig farms in your area, you will be surprised what kind of goodies you can find there. It’s worth it!

I am anxious to taste the guanciale and pancetta that I made from the same pig.

Bacon dry-curing process

Bacon curing process itself is extremely easy as well. There is no need to control temperature or humidity, so no need in a dedicated dry curing chamber.  Simply use a regular fridge, as long as it has enough space.

1. Start with cutting a pork belly into manageable pieces. I cut mine into 8″ x 8″ squares and/or 8-inch long rectangles. This way I get the standard length bacon slices. Feel free to make them longer or shorter, to satisfy your needs and preferences.
2. Apply the dry cure mix evenly on all sides of each pork belly piece. I like to measure out the amount of rub per each piece to make sure each one gets the right amount of salt and other ingredients.
3. Place the belly pieces in individual Ziploc bags and refrigerate them for 21 days, flipping occasionally. If you have access to a vacuum sealer, go ahead use it instead. I find that vacuum-sealed pork belly cures more evenly, and flipping becomes less critical.
4. After 21 days the bacon is fully cured. You don’t need to rinse it. Simply slice, cook, and enjoy. Keep in mind, that you need to try and slice the bacon equally thin. Otherwise, some slices will cook faster than the others. I recommend using a meat slicer for this task.
5. You may also hang it to dry for a week or so, at the temperatures below 40F (if not using Cure #1) or at 55F or below if using Cure #1. This will result in a richer taste and longer shelf life.

Storing home-cured bacon

This bacon will keep well in a fridge for a week or two. Much longer if you use Cure #1. Even longer if vacuum sealed. However, if you don’t plan on using the bacon soon, vacuum seal it, sliced or in whole pieces, and freeze for up to 6 months and even longer. When ready to use, defrost in a fridge or ice water.

This recipe was updated on May 6, 2020