I was making breakfast earlier on today, when one of my girls asked for some bacon. As it turns out we haven’t had any in quite a while. Anywho, being the resourceful mother that I am, I decided to research how to cure bacon at home. Please allow me to share with you what I discovered.

Well, apparently you only need four ingredients to cure bacon. Did you know that? Neither did I, so you are not alone. It will take up to 7 days to fully cure your bacon, so if you were thinking of making it for breakfast tomorrow, that will not be possible.

Here’s What You’ll Need:

• pig belly
• kosher salt
• sugar
• pink salt
• baking sheet
• large ziploc bag
• paper towels
• roasting pan
• cooking thermometer

The first thing you have to do is make the cure, and that involves weighing out the dry ingredients and mixing them together. Then you spread it on a baking sheet and coat the pig belly evenly with the cure.

Zip up the coated belly in a ziploc bag, and place in your fridge. Now you will have to turn it over every second day for a week. By day 7, the belly should be firm and it will be time to take it out and rinse the cure off.

Meanwhile, your oven should be preheated to 200 degrees F. The belly goes into the roasting pan and into the oven until it gets to 150 degrees F. After which, the skin should be removed using a sharp knife while still hot. Store wrapped up in your refrigerator, after it cools.

You can follow step by step instructions on the Backyard Pioneer blog, here…

Home Cured Bacon Recipe

You can watch the video below on how to make homemade cured & smoked bacon…

You can watch the video below on how to make homemade cured bacon in brine…

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