Coffee Glazed Bacon

Coffee + bacon = coffee glazed bacon. Also known as two of my favourite breakfast foods (yes, coffee while not technically a food is a breakfast staple) combined into one. I love my partnership with Lavazza because I didn’t think it was possible to fall more in love with coffee, but it is. This month is all about that, coffee, recipes and my love for the two. I’m always trying to think up new ways to use coffee in my recipes, I’ve done decadent brownie desserts, and cool treats for those hot summer days and I figured that it was about time I tried something more on the savoury side of the spectrum. Enter bacon.

The saltiness of the bacon pairs perfectly with the dark nature of the coffee. I also added in a touch of hot sauce, which doesn’t add much heat but instead is there to help with the balance of flavours. I also added some maple syrup because why not (it’s another breakfast staple). For this recipe I used the Lavazza Classico blend (click the link to learn more) which is technically a drip coffee blend, but I brewed it like espresso for a more intense coffee flavour for the glaze on the bacon. I found that this multi-purpose blend with its intense aroma is perfect as an every day coffee but was also pleasantly surprised with its results as an espresso.

Through my recipe development and testing I’ve learned quite a few things about using coffee in recipes. The thing about ground coffee is that you have to be careful when adding it to baked goods because the texture can be a little gritty. That’s why you’ll always see recipes that call for instant coffee because they dissolve right into your baked goods. For a ground coffee, like the Lavazza blends I’ve been working with, I always like to brew them first. This coffee is finely ground, so you can experiment with it, but I’ve found that brewing it first is a great option to add coffee flavour to your recipes.

Take this coffee glazed bacon for example, the earlier iterations of this recipe were, well interesting. I tried a few different methods, coating the bacon in the coffee grounds (the coffee grounds burnt before the bacon was cooked through), brewing a pot of drip coffee and marinating the bacon strips in it (the flavour wasn’t strong enough), and finally this recipe I’m sharing here where I found that marinating the bacon in espresso and brushing more on during the last ten minutes of cooking yielded the best results. The espresso adds a subtle coffee flavour (with slight bitter notes) which pairs beautifully with the buttery kiss of the maple syrup and saltiness of the bacon.

Did you know that September 29th is National Coffee Day? I mean, a day to celebrate coffee - sign me up! I’ll be celebrating on Instagram and Twitter with #NationalCoffeeDay so be sure to join me, I’d love to see your coffee recipe creations or if you try one of my recipes (use the hashtag #LivingLou, tag me @living_lou on Twitter or @livinglou on Instragam).

Here are some more coffee recipes for inspiration:

Something decadent: Dark Chocolate Brownie Affogato

Something for dinner: Cocoa and chili rubbed pork

Something cool: Iced Coffee

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Lavazza - all opinions are my own - thank you for supporting my sponsors and allowing me to continue creating content like this recipe for coffee glazed bacon.