Spicy Bacon Jam with Chipotle Peppers

Watch my spicy bacon jam web story here.

What Makes This Recipe Awesome

This jam is pretty spectacular. What makes it so great is that I have chosen ingredients that already play up what’s so addictive about bacon:

Using the best bacon: You can absolutely use bacon purchased from your grocery store.

If you go that route, make sure to get the best quality bacon they have.

Since the flavor of this jam is undeniably bacony, the better the bacon, the more flavor your jam will have.

I used a pound of excellent quality local smoked heritage bacon raised by my friends at Coon Rock Farm from Bella Bean Organics.

Porky sweetness: gets dialed up with some cane vinegar and honey.

Smoky Goodness: This jam ups the ante when it comes to smoky flavor with the addition of and chipotles in adobo. The chipotles are also what give this jam a bit of heat. If all you have is “regular” black pepper, just use that. You can add a little bit of liquid smoke. But this jam is going to be delicious regardless.

Garlic, Baby: I have a jar of garlic in fermented honey sauce, and I used a good 2 full Tablespoons in this jam. Tons of garlic flavor, plus additional sweetness and a little fermented funkiness. So dang good, y’all! You can absolutely just use some honey and some minced garlic. The kind I had is no longer available online that I could see, but you can make your own fermented garlic honey if you’d like.

Savory Deliciousness: some instant coffee or brings a little mysterious, savory edge to this jam. You can’t really taste it as “coffee,” but it does provide some backbone.

How To Make It

Bacon jam is pretty easy to make, friends. The procedure is very straightforward with only a few steps. First, let’s check out the ingredients you’ll need.

Where necessary, I will add my ideas for substitutions.

Ingredients

• bacon: You’ll need 1 full pound. If you use peppered bacon, you can leave out the smoked black pepper if you’d like
• sweet onion: adds sweet, caramelized depth and lends to the lip-smacking, finger-licking stickiness that is part of this jam’s charm
• honey: adds sweetness. Feel free to substitute brown sugar, maple syrup, sorghum syrup or even a combination
• cane vinegar: a delicious, dark vinegar made from sugar cane. It is slightly sweet, so it not only adds tang but a bit more sugar. Balsamic is a great sub here, but feel free to use any vinegar you have. The main point of the vinegar is to add a touch of acid to balance out the fattiness, so it’s your call as to which kind you use: apple cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, white vinegar, blush vinegar, red wine vinegar: all are acceptable substitutes.
• chipotles in adobo: adds some spiciness and additional smokiness. You can substitute ground chipotle or your favorite hot sauce to taste as well. Or if you don’t want yours to be spicy, leave it out entirely
• fermented honey sauce with garlic: This product is a recent find, and I’ve been putting it in everything from salad dressings to this jam to soups and stews. Substitute 3-4 cloves of minced garlic for the sauce if you don’t want to buy it. (It’s unavailable now). If you’re intrigued, you can make your own!
• instant coffee: Adds just a bit of backbone and mysterious slight bitterness. Not strictly necessary, but I love a recipe with as many layers as possible. If you do too, use the coffee.
• kosher salt: Yes, bacon is salty, but it really needs just a touch extra to bring all the flavors into focus.
• smoked black pepper: You can also substitute regular black pepper. Smoked black pepper is another favorite though, so pick some up if you are intrigued.

Procedure

Here’s how you’ll make your chipotle bacon jam:

1. Chop bacon into 1″ pieces and cook until about halfway done.
2. Pour off the fat that has accumulated in the pan, and add the onions, fermented honey and garlic, salt, and pepper and cook until the bacon is completely cooked and the onions are very soft and starting to caramelize.
3. Pour off most of the additional fat that has accumulated. (See Tips and Tricks)
4. Add the honey, chipotles in adobo, vinegar, and the instant coffee and cook down until jammy and the whole concoction is a deep mahogany brown color, including the onions. This will take 30-40 minutes on medium heat.
5. Scrape all the jam into the bowl of your food processor, and pulse until you like the texture.
6. Cool and then store in the fridge.

Equipment You’ll Need

You don’t need a ton of specialized equipment to make this recipe, but here are a few items that will make your life easier.

The one must-have (unless you really like to chop things into tiny, tiny pieces) is a food processor. If you don’t use one super frequently, there is no need to spend hundreds of dollars on one.

This Hamilton Beach food processor will get the job done and won’t break the bank.

Other nice-to-have equipment:

• Large cast iron skillets are super versatile and useful and will last forever if you take care of them. I made my bacon jam in a 12″ skillet from Lodge, which is about as heavy as I’d want to try to pick up.
• I love my silicone spatula set from OXO and use all 3 styles almost every day.
• One-piece measuring spoons. Even though I almost always weigh my ingredients, I don’t need to be so precise in this recipe (and neither do you). These spoons will last you forever. NOTE: if you have lots of small spice bottles, the larger round spoons won’t fit down inside them. If you find this annoying, be sure to also grab a set of spoons designed for narrow jars.

Bacon Jam Tips and Tricks

Even though you really need to store this in the fridge, the flavor and texture will be best if slightly warmed.

I scoop out what I think I need into a small microwave-safe bowl and then heat it for 10 seconds or so until it is spreadable and at least room temperature if not actually warm.

If you end up with jam with a lot of extra fat in it, refrigerate it BEFORE you put it in the food processor. That way, you can scrape off the extra fat.

Once you do, then you can reheat to loosen it up and then pulse until you get your desired jammy texture.

Don’t throw away that excess bacon fat that is flavored with chipotles and other goodness. Fry up some potatoes or eggs in that stuff!

Variation

For a less spicy, more fruity bacon jam, try my bacon peach jam.

You can also vary any of the ingredients in this jam to make it more or less spicy.

Q & A

What To Serve It With

Submitted for your approval: an epic breakfast sandwich including chipotle bacon jam, pepper jelly, a fried egg (I fried it in a ring for a regular shape), melted cheddar cheese, and pimento cheese bread (purchased from a local bakery).

I highly recommend serving this jam on any kind of breakfast sandwich. Slathering a thick layer on a spent grain English muffin is an excellent place to start. See?

It would also be great as a condiment on a burger. Consider subbing out bacon jam for the lacquered bacon in this BBQ bacon smashed burger. You can even mix some into the ground beef for your burger patties.

Bacon and onions go hand in hand, so spread some on one of the buns of this epic onion burger.

Whisk some (melted) into a basic vinaigrette for a delicious bacon vinaigrette which would be especially lovely on a spinach salad.

Don’t discount this deliciousness spread onto a hot biscuit.

And I was super happy with the results of swirling a good amount of it into my latest batch of succotash.

For a similar type of savory jam, you may like my onion jam recipe. It can go anywhere bacon jam goes, but it has a less assertive (though no less delicious) flavor, so it can act as a supporting player.

Questions?

Thanks for spending some time with me today, friends!

Enjoy the bacon jam, take care, and have a lovely day.