It must be a wonderful time to be a vegetarian. Beyond the bounty of fresh and exotic produce available year round, there are some great companies out there making tasty meat alternatives. Heck, I’m not a vegetarian and I love St. Ives Veggie Dogs. So we asked our good friend Maurie to give us a review of his favorite bacon alternative. Here’s what he had to say:
Yes, vegetarian bacon! Smart Bacon tastes great and is super easy to make too. It doesn’t curl up or really wind up looking anything at all like the picture on the front of the package. They start off as a clump of stuck together reddish strips that are all one uniform color. As they cook they go from that original red to varying shades of brown. Some people like them over cooked so they are good and crunchy. Some like them slightly undercooked so they are chewy. Both ways are quite tasty.
Hell, you can eat them raw and they are still good.
The only tricky thing about making Smart Bacon is peeling apart the slices without tearing them; for some reason they tend to be easier to peel apart starting from the middle of the pack. Even then some breaks and tears happen. To minimize this try dividing the pack in two and then peel them off from the inside working out. No matter what you do you’ll always wind up with some pieces stuck together and few broken off sides. On the upside, those pieces are great to snack on while making the bacon and to use as testers to check crispiness.
To cook: just put a little olive oil in a skillet and fry until desired level of crispiness is reached. Once cooked place on paper towel to soak up the oil.
vegetarian bacon wtf going on CL rants and raves with this one not in my town no way no how