How to Make Maple-Glazed Bacon for Breakfast

Every day starts with breakfast so what better way is there to get pumped up in the mornings than to treat yourself to something exceedingly delicious? Of course, for many of us, that means bacon.

Bacon is a classic breakfast meat. We’re not sure why it’s become synonymous with the first meal of the day, but probably because it not only tastes great, but goes down nice and easy and pairs well with pretty much anything else you’d want to eat at that time of day. Oh yeah, and it’s incredibly easy to cook. After all, who wants to spend an hour cooking first thing in the morning? Not us.

So you eat bacon all the time and probably think those simple rashers can’t get any better. Well, hold on just a minute. Because for just a tiny bit of extra effort, you can enjoy that delectable smoky-salty flavour glazed with everybody’s favourite natural sweetener: maple syrup.

Here we’ll show you two different methods of making maple bacon: maple-glazed and maple-candied.

What is maple bacon?

Maple bacon is simply bacon that’s been glazed with maple syrup. It combines the smoky-salty taste of bacon with the smoky-sweet flavour of maple syrup for a decadent sweet and savoury breakfast. Food doesn’t get much more North American than this.

There are different ways of making maple bacon and we’ll show you two methods below. The first is a simple maple-glazed bacon that uses just two ingredients. The second is maple-candied bacon, which is essentially just another method of glazing, but that complements the smoky sweetness with additional spices.

Note that both recipes below must be made with pure maple syrup. Imitation (maple-flavoured or maple-style) syrups will not only be too sweet, they will also burn.

How to make maple-glazed bacon

Maple-glazed bacon ingredients

• 16 slices bacon
• ¼ cup pure maple syrup

Maple-glazed bacon method

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top of it. (A cooling rack will do if you don’t have one specifically for cooking, so long as it’s heatproof.)
3. Arrange the bacon on the wire rack with sufficient space between each piece for air to circulate and cook the bacon evenly.
4. Bake the bacon until beginning to brown. This should take about 15 minutes.
5. Remove the baking sheet and wire rack from the oven and brush the top side of the bacon with the pure maple syrup.
6. Return the bacon to the oven and bake until browned and sticky. This should take about 3 to 5 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and allow any excess syrup to drip off as the bacon cools for a minute before serving.

How to make maple-candied bacon

Maple-candied bacon ingredients

• 12 oz bacon (preferably hickory smoked)
• ¼ cup pure maple syrup
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp smoked paprika
• ¼ tsp black pepper (freshly cracked)
• ¼ tsp nutmeg (freshly grated)
• ¼ cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Maple-candied bacon method

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top of it.
3. Arrange the bacon on the wire rack with some space between each piece.
4. In a bowl, mix the spice into the maple syrup.
5. Brush the top side of the bacon with the maple syrup mixture and then sprinkle with nuts 
6. Bake the bacon until crisp. This should take around 20 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and allow the bacon to cool for a minute before serving.

What to eat with maple bacon

So what should you eat with maple bacon for breakfast? Well, there are three answers to that question: eggs, eggs, and eggs.

Poached eggs and maple bacon are not only a classic combination but, by pairing the exceedingly decadent maple bacon with one of the healthiest ways to cook eggs, poaching might just alleviate any candied pork related guilt that you might have. 

Or what about a frittata? It’s hard to beat the asparagus frittata recipe (at least when asparagus is in season and at its best), but the zucchini frittata recipe sure goes close.

Oh, and of course maple bacon goes great with pancakes too.