• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

FORAGER | CHEF

Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

  • Home
  • About
  • Wild Mushrooms
    • Mushroom Archive
    • Posts by Species
      • Other Mushrooms
        • Lobster Mushrooms
        • Huitlacoche
        • Shrimp of the Woods
        • Truffles
        • Morels
        • Shaggy Mane
        • Hericium
        • Puffball
      • Polypores
        • Hen of the Woods
        • Dryad Saddle
        • Chicken of The Woods
        • Cauliflowers
        • Ischnoderma
        • Beefsteak
      • Chanterelles
        • Black Trumpet
        • Hedgehogs
        • Yellowfeet
      • Gilled
        • Matsutake
        • Honey Mushrooms
        • Russula / Lactarius
          • Candy Caps
          • Saffron Milkcap
          • Indigo Milkcap
      • Boletes
        • Porcini
        • Leccinum
        • Slippery Jacks
    • Recipes
      • Fresh
      • Dried
      • Preserves
    • The Basics
  • Plants
    • Plant Archive
    • Leafy Green Recipes
      • Leafy Green Plant Varieties
    • Ramps and Onions
    • Wild Herbs and Spices
      • Spruce and Conifers
      • Pollen
      • Prickly Ash
      • Bergamot / Wild Oregano
      • Spicebush
      • Golpar / Cow Parsnip
      • Wild Carraway
    • Wild Fruit
      • Wild Plums
      • Highbush Cranberry
      • Wild Grapes
      • Rowanberries
      • Wild Cherries
      • Aronia
      • Nannyberry
      • Wild Blueberries
    • From The Garden
    • Nuts, Roots, Tubers and Grains
    • Stalks and Shoots
  • Meat
    • Four-Legged Animals
      • Venison
      • Small Game
    • Poultry
    • Fish/Seafood
    • Offal and Organ Meat Recipes
    • Charcuterie
  • Recipes
    • Pickles, Preserves, Etc
    • Fermentation
    • Condiments
    • Appetizers
    • Soup
    • Salad
    • Side Dishes
    • Entrees
    • Baking
    • Sweets
  • Video
    • Field, Forest Feast (The Wild Harvest)
    • Foraging Videos
    • Lamb and Goat Series
    • YouTube Tutorials
  • Press
    • Podcasts / Interviews
  • Work
    • Public Speaking
    • Charity and Private Dinners
    • Forays / Classes / Demos

How to Make Traditional English Bacon

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

Homemade English Bacon RecipeIf you make your own bacon, or process your own hogs, you likely know how incredible homemade bacon is. A while ago, during the pandemic when hogs were a dime a dozen, I got the chance to butcher two whole pigs with my father and some friends, and before I did, I made sure to ask all my chef and butcher friends what sort of cuts they’d like to take if they were cutting up their own pig.

I got a lot of great ideas, a few new ones that I’ll be sharing with you, but one of my favorite suggestions came from my friend Mathew Normansell of edenwildfood.com a British citizen who moved to Wisconsin a few years ago. Mathew mentioned English bacon or British back bacon, and, DIY bacon afficionado that I am, I knew I had to make some.

Homemade English Bacon Recipe

Removing the section of spine after smoking.

So how’s British style bacon different from regular bacon? A quick google will show you plenty of pictures, and, with a rudimentary knowledge of the parts of the pig you’ll be able to see where the cut comes from.  

Homemade English Bacon Recipe

A finished slice after smoking. Note the nice layer of fat on top. With a scalded pig this will be a lot more fatty.

Americans style bacon (also called streaky bacon) is made from the pork belly. English bacon is a hybrid. If you look at some of the pictures online, it might seem to resemble thinly sliced pork chops, and that’s exactly what it is.

English bacon is made from the loin, but not the trimmed, fat-less loins or boneless chops you’ll see in the supermarket, it’s made from a loin with the fat cap still attached. This gives it a nice combination of fat-to meat, although it will always be a little more lean than American bacon.

So, how’s it eat? Pretty darn good. It’s a little like if you crossed Canadian bacon with American bacon, since there’s much more fat than typical Canadian bacon, but a little less than American.

Either way, it’s cured, smoked pork, it’s delicious, and it’ll make all the things taste better. As a bonus, I smoke mine with the spine still attached so that I could remove it to get a bonus soup out of the deal when everything was said and done.

Homemade English Bacon Recipe

Cooks up just like any other bacon, with a little less rendered fat, of course.

How to cut it

How to remove English bacon from a pork loin

The hand is holding the belly, still attached to the loin. The blue square outlines the rib-less section of the loin that will be your English bacon. Photo taken from a video by Bon Apetit.

This is the only tricky part, especially if you’re new to hog butchery. Here’s how I did it, step by step. Also, if you need a refresher, this video tutorial on whole pig butchery is the best I’ve ever seen.

  1. Skin the hog, then hang it up by it’s back feet on a skidloader, a tree, etc
  2. Using a reciprocating saw, cut the animal in half through the spine
  3. Lay the hog half, cut side up on a table
  4. Remove the shoulder at the joint
  5. Remove the leg at the joint
  6. Remove the belly in one piece, cutting in half with a handsaw for a straight cut
  7. Take the loin and find where the rib bones end (it should be about 1/3 of the whole loin)
  8. Remove the rib-less 1/3 of the loin—this is your English bacon
  9. Cut the rest of the loin with ribs into pork chops
  10. Rub the rib-less loin all over with the bacon cure, wait 6-7 days, smoke, cool, portion, freeze, and, pig out!

Homemade English Bacon Recipe

Traditional use 

As Mathew explained to me, proper bacon is an important part of a full English breakfast, along with fried tomatoes, beans, eggs, and black pudding. If you don’t have time to throw down for the whole English breakfast, it’s fine on it’s own with some eggs and toast, or in a bacon sandwich like a BLT. 

Print Recipe
4.3 from 10 votes

English Bacon

A simple smoked English bacon recipe. It's not exactly traditional, but after a taste you won't care.
Prep Time20 mins
Cook Time3 hrs
Curing Time6 d
Course: Appetizer, Breakfast
Cuisine: English
Keyword: Bacon, Charcuterie
Servings: 12

Equipment

  • Smoker

Ingredients

  • 1 rib-less pork loin roast about 3-4 pounds, including the fat cap
  • 8 oz brown sugar
  • 4 oz kosher salt
  • 10 grams or 1.5 teaspoons pink salt sodium nitrite
  • 1/2 tsp whole cloves
  • ½ tsp whole allspice
  • 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Instructions

  • Combine the spices and grind to a fine powder in a spice grinder, then mix with the salt, pink salt, and sugar.
  • Stand the pork roast up so that the fat cap is facing up. Score the fat ¼ inch deep in a cross-hatch pattern, then flip over and cut next to the bone/spine a bit as if you were going to start removing the bone.
    Follow the bone with a paring knife, revealing an inch or two in, to make it easier for the cure to absorb, and to give you an outline of where to cut to remove the bone when the “bacon” is done smoking.
  • Rub the meat liberally with the cure, getting into all the nooks and crannies, then put in a zip loc bag or vacuum seal and refrigerate for 5 days, turning occasionally to distribute the juices.
  • After 5 days, remove the pork from the liquid, rinse, pat dry, then refrigerate for at least a few hours, preferably overnight, uncovered, which will help it form a skin that will absorb smoke, known as the pellicle.
  • Smoke the loin, fat side up at 225 for 3 hours, or until lightly browned and fully cooked (145-150F)* then cool, cut off the bone, slice, portion, vacuum seal and freeze or refrigerate until needed.

Notes

*Temperature note
I cook this "bacon" through since It's delicious shaved thin after cooking, put on sandwiches, etc. For a more traditional-style English bacon, cold smoke the loin, then chill in the freezer until half-frozen to make it easier to slice, or cook to a lower internal temperature, making sure you cook thoroughly before eating. 

Related

Previous Post: « The Forager Chefs Book of Flora
Next Post: Braised Burdock and Wild Mushrooms »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Anthony walkling

    July 20, 2020 at 9:27 pm

    That sounds delicious but that’s not how british bacon is made. You almost had it though. British back bacon is cured just like you described but is lightly cold smoked instead of hot smoked. Then we broil it or roast in the oven on lo until the fat crisps turning half way through. Then put on white bread (tomato and lettuce if your posh)ketchup and brown sauce (broadly similar to steak sauce). Man I miss a good english bacon sandwich. I think I’m gonna go ahead and make your recipe but cold smoked

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      July 21, 2020 at 7:43 pm

      In the scheme of things I thought it was close enough. I sent some to my friend from Britain and he was pleased.

      Reply
      • Anthony walkling

        July 21, 2020 at 10:27 pm

        Oh don’t get me wrong I wasnt criticising.just spreading knowledge. I actually just ordered a loin in order to do your recipe.

        Reply
  2. H

    February 7, 2021 at 5:07 am

    5 stars
    That is not English bacon or anything close. This is American bacon (cooked through *before* slicing). I’m sure it’s delicious but could you edit out the word “English”?

    Confusing the two is a potentially dangerous idea as actual English bacon is not edible until cooked and needs handling like the raw meat that it is..

    Thank you! Great website 🙂

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      February 7, 2021 at 10:05 am

      Hendrik, thanks for commenting,

      So, another way to look at this post is as a suggestion for homecooks, chefs, and hunters with access to sub-primal cuts to do something different and creative with a cut of meat they may not have thought of before. You’re right, English bacon isn’t fully cooked, and I note that in the recipe, but saying it isn’t anything close to English bacon is a stuffy, puritanical view, and the suggestion of it being dangerous is silly. Trichinosis in American farmed pork coming in at 16 cases a year as of 2020 (via CDC) is a danger from my Grandmother’s era, not ours (wild hogs are a different story). Heritage pork is wonderful cooked to 140-145 F, and that temperature is ample to kill and sterilize food from trich (hunters in the U.S. use the method to sterilize bear meat and consume it medium-rare-ish).

      Another benefit is bringing awareness to Anglo-saxon cuts and butchery styles. Since I posted this last year, 15K people in the U.S. alone (many of whom probably didn’t know there was such a thing as this), have now heard of it. I may take some small creative liberties here and there, but they’re well intended. The name stays. 🙂

      Reply
      • Robert

        May 20, 2021 at 2:46 pm

        5 stars
        I’ve enjoyed full English breakfasts for years in the UK. When living in Switzerland, I would “smuggle” Greenback and Regular back bacon into Geneva. I enjoyed both regular (smoked). Have also done my own bacon through dry cure and smoke, one cold smoked and once hot smoked. Prefer cold smoked and will do the same with your recipe. Looks very good, thanks.

        Reply
  3. Dave Freeman

    February 27, 2021 at 3:45 pm

    5 stars
    Best alternative to Canadian back bacon

    Reply
  4. Mark

    April 30, 2022 at 11:01 am

    5 stars
    Excellent little piece of charcuterie

    Reply
  5. Mark

    May 20, 2022 at 4:33 pm

    5 stars
    I hadn’t heard of English bacon but here I am making it a second time. After reading comments I can’t wait to try with ‘brown gravy’. This time I am using a pork butt trimmed just to see if it throws a little ham flavor in. I figure pig + smoke = can’t go wrong. Thanks for the fun and tasty recipe!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      May 20, 2022 at 10:25 pm

      Glad it worked for you Mark. That’s great to hear. Now I’m googling brown gravy.

      Reply
  6. Tony

    August 7, 2022 at 9:48 pm

    I am very confused with all this.
    I am referring here to both curing and smoking, both of which I have done several times with good results.
    However, and in my humble view both ‘Britsh’ style gammon and bacon are ALWAYS cooked before being eaten, usually fried in a frying pan.
    I much prefer my bacon and gammon smoked so then my question is,
    In all the recipies I have seen which involve smoking it’s mentioned to smoke until the internal temperature is in the region of 145-150F. I think this tempedrature assumes fully cooked but why, since the gammon/bacon is always fried and therefore cooked again ?.
    In the case of British style gammon, how to smoke it WITHOUT actually cooking it ?. So it’s similar to the ‘raw’ smoked gammon available at most British supermarkets.
    My smoker is the hot type which uses wood and to achieve the 145-150F normally takes 9-13 hours with the cuts of pork I use. Of course this is fine for smoked hams which are meant to be fully cooked but not for bacon and gammon.
    Can anyone help ?. A quick mail to [email protected] would be welcome.
    Thanks in advance,
    Tony.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      August 12, 2022 at 4:19 pm

      Hey Tony, you have a few options here. You can cold smoke it, which will leave it raw. Personally, I like it hot smoked to 145F and then warmed up to crisp it a bit before eating. If you smoke it and bring the temp to 145F or so it’s also wonderful just sliced after it’s cooled and eaten as ham. It’s pretty simple, really.

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Alan Bergo Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

James Beard Award Winner

beard award

Subscribe (It’s free)

Forager Chef

Forager Chef

Footer

Instagram

foragerchef

FORAGER | CHEF®
🍄🌱🍖
Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
James Beard Award ‘22
Host: Field Forest Feast 👇
streaming on @tastemade

Alan Bergo
Sometimes I forget we have good traditions in Amer Sometimes I forget we have good traditions in America too. Case in point: bourbon. 

TIL about American traditions, and the role of the white oak in aging. Tasted some of that sweet nectar too. 

The rye finished in rum barrels smells like pure maple syrup 🤤. @angelsenvy

#bourbon #whiskeyrow #angelsenvy #whiteoak
Summer veg PSA: One of the edible plant parts I co Summer veg PSA: One of the edible plant parts I cover in my book you might not know are squash and pumpkin shoots. 

Tender and delicious, these are eaten around the world. The US is still coming around, but I see them occasionally at farmers markets. 

I like to give them a dip in boiling water to wilt them quick, then toss them with some fat or stir-fry them quick. The little curly-cues make them look like fairy tale veggies to me. 

#squashshoots #cucurbitaceae #eatmoreplants #kehoecarboncookware
Shaved cattail rhizomes with smoked trout, chickwe Shaved cattail rhizomes with smoked trout, chickweed, lemon, hickory nut oil and tarragon from the @wild.fed shoot. 

I spent a couple days trying to cook the rhizomes, and it works, but raw is my favorite prep. 

I add some smoked trout both for the salty pop and because it’s fun to mix aquatic edibles. Runner bean flowers for a splash of color. 

#cattails #foraging #chickweed #runnerbeans #saladsofinstagram
Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water by hand with Sam Thayer and @danielvitalis for @wild.fed 

Daniel and Sam were the apex predators, but I got a few. 

Without a net catching crayfish by hand is definitely a wax-on wax-off sort of skill. Clears your mind. 

They’re going into gumbo with porcini, sausage and milkweed pods today. 

#crayfish #ninjareflexes #waxonwaxoff #normalthings #onset🎥🎬
Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizo Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizomes and blueberries for this weeks shoot with @wildfed 

Been a few years since I worked with these. Thankfully Sam Thayer dropped a couple off for me to work with. They’re tender, crisp and delicious. 

Sam mentioned their mild flavor and texture could be because they don’t have to worry about predators eating them, since they grow in the muck of cattail marshes. 

I think they could use a pet name. Pond tusk? Swamp spears? Help me out here. 😂

Nature makes the coolest things. 

#itcamefromthepond #cattail #rhizomes #foraging #typhalatifolia
I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so much we filmed it instead of the original dish I’d planned. 

Cooked natural wild rice (not the black shiny stuff) is great hot, cold, sweet or savory. It’s a perfect, filling lunch for a long day of berry picking. 

I make them with whatever I have on hand. Mushrooms will fade into the background a little here, so I use a bunch of them, along with lots of herbs and hickory nut oil + dill flowers. 

I’m eating the leftovers today back up in the barrens (hopefully) getting some more bluebs for another shoot this week w @wild.fed 

#wilwilwice #wildrice #chanterelles #campfood #castironcooking
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Privacy

  • Privacy Policy

Affiliate Disclosure

 I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. Your purchases help keep this website free and help with the many costs involved with this site as it has continued to grow over the years. 

Copyright © 2022 ·