Bacon seems to be everywhere. Pizza is no exception, and it's one temptation you don’t have to resist.
There’s a not-so-old saying that goes, “Everything’s better with bacon.” And people say it for good reason: if there’s one extra ingredient everyone seems to want nowadays, it’s bacon. Same goes for pizza, a guilty pleasure that many diners indulge in when they’re making their choice.
Fat facts
Unfortunately there's no way to spin the fact that bacon is not a healthy food. Loaded with salt and fat, it still has a few redeeming qualities. At just 70 calories per strip on average, it’s surprisingly low in caloric content and is a source of protein as well.
Technically speaking, bacon is pork fat, and of all the fatty parts of the pig used in the kitchen, bacon is by far the most popular in Canadian homes. The fatty-pork part of the pig’s back is largely made up of fat, while cuts from the chest and belly have more meat in them.
Know your bacons
There are many ways the fatty parts of the pig are used for pizzas, including:
- Bacon: a salted, smoked cut. It originated in Anglo-Saxon cuisine but has gained popularity around the world.
- Bacon bits: chopped pieces of bacon used in cooking or on salads.
- Pancetta: sometimes called “Italian bacon.” It's a fine deli meat made of unsmoked pork belly, cured with spices, and then dried.
Bacon pizzas
Bacon makes a great pizza topping all on its own, but it's usually used in combination with other ingredients. The bacon is usually placed on top of the cheese, replacing pepperoni as the traditional single meat on the pizza.
Otherwise, bacon might be an extra—some pizzerias use bacon bits instead of strips of bacon, but the effect is the same.
Another option, gaining in popularity, is bacon breakfast pizza. Topped with hollandaise sauce instead of tomato sauce, and hard-boiled eggs instead of pepperoni, the bacon breakfast pizza is truly delicious.
