Best Crispy Smoked Bacon Recipe

This smoked bacon recipe is amazing! If you’re looking for smoky crispy bacon with lots of flavor for breakfast or wrapped inside a meatloaf, try this! Traeger bacon is out of this world.

Smoked Bacon

You may never cook your pig any other way after this. I am serious y’all. I mean out of the package is pretty good, especially if you buy a good brand and it is uncured. That is by far the best out of the lot from the store. Take it a step further by smoking bacon in a Traeger and it will go from pretty good to out of this world.

Let’s talk about what we used here. You can do this a few ways, starting with pork belly sliced or grab a package at the store and add the smokiness. If yours is plain to begin with you’d want some pink curing salt. Ours was packaged and came out more amazing than as is. Serve it to your brood and they’ll think you’re a hero I tell you.

To get your meats absolutely perfect we have this printable meat smoking chart to refer to so each and every time it will be fork tender.

Traeger Bacon

Let’s start with what type of bacon you should use. I am kinda’ particular when it comes to meat. Typically at the beginning of each year we will buy half a cow and sometimes half of a pig from a local farmer. That way we know it is grass fed, organic and raised in a humane way.

If you don’t have this opportunity it is okay because they still offer these varieties at the store. What you should look for is uncured first off, organic and thick cut is the ultimate variety. Turkey Bacon is okay but won’t get as crispy, period.

Note: We are not making bacon from scratch out of a pork belly here. Rather we are using bacon from the butcher and smoking it ourselves to give it a richer smokier flavor. If you wanted to smoke the pork belly I would pressure cook pork belly first. Then cool it overnight, slice the next day and start from there.

Traeger Smoked Bacon

If you want to find the best already sliced varieties at the store skip the refrigerated section next to the cheese and keep walking to the butcher counter. Better yet, if you have a butcher store in your area GO THERE!! There’s a HUGE difference and it’s well worth the drive.

If you go buy a big package and then separate it out into smaller pieces, wrapped with plastic wrap and into freezer bags. Then you can pull one out on the weekends. That is what we do. Actually, that’s not true. When we moved to Idaho we bought half a pig! The butcher processed it and packaged it into quarter hams, spicy sausage, bacon and more.

That’s when we got hooked and could tell the difference between this and packaged. I get that this isn’t always an option but I guarantee you have a meat shop near you, just search online.

Smoked Bacon Slices

There are a few important things to remember before you start that helps when you’re making this smoked bacon recipe.

• Preheating your smoker to 150 degrees is important. 
• You need a cast iron grill grate / griddle pan you see here above, or a cast iron skillet would work. I like this one though because it’s nice and big, rectangular, and flat on the other side to make pancakes.

Have you jumped on the cast iron train yet?? Most come pre seasoned and make just about any meat you cook in it that much more amazing. They last forever and can be used in your oven too. If you don’t have one you can cook bacon in the oven with aluminum foil too.

Smoked homemade bacon

You only need one ingredient really unless you are adding sodium nitrite to the outside of your plain pork after you pat dry the outsides. This is what you need:

• Bacon
  • from the butcher is best vs. packaged
  • remove the skin first if it is on the outside when you get it
  • slice with a sharp knife if it isn’t already sliced thick
• Pellets or wood chips
  • we like apple pellets but mesquite is wonderful too
• Grill grate is very helpful and saves a lot of mess
  • you could use a rimmed baking sheet if that’s all you have

How to Smoke Bacon

If you want sticky candied bacon you could roll each piece in a mixture of brown sugar, Kosher salt and even a pinch of black pepper. There are a ton of ways you can add flavor to this dish if you think outside of the box. We used the bacon as is and loved the natural flavors.

• Put bacon on paper towels after removing from grill
• Store leftovers in a plastic bag. (we never have any left).
• THEN roll it up with cheese into our smoked meatloaf recipe!

Our smoked bacon wrapped pork chops is incredibly amazing too. If you are new to this machine you are in for a real treat. Whether you have an electric version like you see below, or Traeger with pellets the temperature and timing basically works the same.

Bacon in a Smoker

Add pellets or chips into your smoker. We used a pellet grill and smoker with apple pellets. Preheat your smoker to 150 degrees, then move to 350 degrees and place bacon on cast iron grill plate, cast iron pan, or directly on your grate. Directly on your grate will make for a very messy cleanup. Do not overlap slices.

1. Close your lid and allow to cook for approx. 30 minutes and then check to see how much crispier you’d like it. Add more time for more well done bacon.
2. Remove from pan and enjoy immediately.

Timing will vary greatly depending on how thick your slices are and if you have a brown sugar coating or not. If you did add a bit of sweetness you may need an additional 30 minutes. Smoking candied bacon actually is the best way to do it because it is low and slow. Allows the sugars to seep in and crystalize into super sweetness y’all.

Bacon on a Traeger

What do you do with leftover cooked bacon? It saves quite well actually. You will need to wait until they cool completely, do this on paper towels. Then throw them into a freezer bag and suck all of the air out of there. Reheat the next day for best results. I like to put bacon in the air fryer that day to crisp it back up. It is by far the best way ever.