Print This Print

Our Best Smoky, Sizzling Bacon Recipes

Written by Emily Tennyson. Produced by Diana McMillen. Photographs by Blaine Moats

Whether its scent wafts in from the kitchen in the morning or up from a salad at dinner, this culinary rebel exerts one of the food world's most irresistible pulls.

1 of 12 |

Bacon and Baked Potato Soup

Forget sashimi or foie gras. When it comes to hip food, bacon remains the ever-popular culinary rebel.

Bacon technically consists of cured and smoked meat taken from a pig's belly. Before cooking, fat typically makes up half to one-third of bacon's weight. None of that seems so appealing in print, but in real life, bacon is gloriously, carnivorously, rebelliously delicious.

The Midwest has a special role in the bacon pipeline. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange began trading pork bellies in the mid-1900s, and most of today's pork is produced in the Midwest. Bacon is versatile and dependable, amping up most dishes. Our cheesy potato soup, for instance, just seems to call for salty-smoky crumbled bacon. So we stirred some in and sprinkled the rest on top.

Bacon and Baked Potato Soup recipe >>