Ground Bacon, like they have on pizzas?

[piano boy]

Anyone know where to get it or how to make it? Stick a side of bacon through a meat grinder?

I love the texture of ground bacon on pizzas at restaurants etc. but have never seen a home version of it.

[Bada Bing]

Who has ground bacon on pizzas?

I'd say that if you want to have any effect of the bacon cooking on pizza itself, then you should freeze uncooked bacon in chunks and then pulse a couple of chunks briefly in a food processor.

If you want something more like crumbled, pre-cooked bacon, then you could cook bacon as usual and process that to your preferred consistency.

[biondanonima]

I have a feeling that the OP was talking about a very finely textured ground bacon, similar to the finely ground sausage that some pizzerias use. I don't know if this is how they do it, but when I want my sausage to be that texture, I cook it first, then pulse it in the food processor to create uniformly fine sausage "crumbs." I haven't done this with bacon, but I imagine the effect would be the same. I would cook the bacon a minute or two short of crisp and then process it.

BTW, I frequently grind raw bacon for inclusion in my bolognese sauce - it works fine, but the result doesn't really cook up like other ground meats - it's so fatty that it mostly just dissolves (which is of course the intended result with bolognese). Cooking it first and then pulsing it in the food processor will give you more texture.

[sueatmo]

If you don't want to do the grinding yourself, I have found Mario 100% Bacon Crumbled Bacon Pieces to be quite acceptable. Another brand gives pieces that are too tough. This brand's pieces seem more like regular bacon without a lot of the fat. I use these in salads, and when I cook greens. I have never used them for pizza.

[wekick]

I was thinking of this the other day to make bacon gravy for biscuits. I am going to use a hand meat grinder to grind the raw bacon. If you don't have one, you can find them in antique malls, yard sales or thrift shops. I often see them in the original box. I use mine for ham salad and relishes. There is no other way to get that texture,

[monku]

Ground bacon or bacon bits?
With all the fat in bacon I would think if you put raw bacon through a meat grinder all you'd get would be a glob of fat?

I've bought the Hormel "crumbled" bacon at Costco to use on salads.
I see they also make bacon "pieces" and "bits" all made from real bacon.
http://www.hormelfoods.com/brands/hor...

[greygarious]

Caveat: That Costco Hormel stuff is exceptionally salty and smoky, way more so than bacon you thoroughly cook at home. I imagine it's to preserve it but I found it completely unpalatable, ruining anything I added it to. I put it in the fridge and used it up over many months by including it in dog biscuits.

[wekick]

I don't like the pre cooked stuff and prefer to do my own. You can find all levels of fat in bacon. We have place here that cuts pork shoulder very thin and cures it. Even with a pork belly, I would look for leaner cut and then cook it well to render the fat. I use the coarsest grinding plate on the grinder.

[chefj]

Cutting slab bacon into blocky strips and freezing make grinding go very well. It works well well grinding back fat and other fatty meats for all kinds of Charcuterie.
The precooked, heavily processed industrial stuff is pretty awful. It has added salt, smoke flavoring and vegetable proteins in addition to the already highly processed bacon that is started with.

[bushwickgirl]

Certain brands are just TVP, no bacon added. TVP is not necessarily a bad thing, btw, but the additives can be.

Freezing first is the answer for successful grinding of a fatty product like bacon.

[chefj]

Thanks for the confirmation. TVP in Bacon = bad thing

[bushwickgirl]

TVP is not necessarily a bad thing in of itself, but it's also not bacon. There are worse additives than TVP in prepared bacon bits. Stick with coarsely ground slab bacon for the best outcome.

[nipsyD]

If we are talking the extra smokey 241 pizza bacon, i also am looking for it. They used to sell it at Summerhill Market, it came precooked in 2kg bags and they portioned it out into plastic tubs and weighed them individually. I do not remember the producer or the supplier. This was 10 years ago. delicious cheap bacon flavour.

[bushwickgirl]

I have to say this must not be an East Coast Mid-Atlantic thing; I've never had bacon on pizza, although I did see it on a pizza joint menu once in CT, but it was just cooked chopped bacon. So I have no idea what pizza bacon is. Am I deprived? Most likely.

[JK Grence the Cosmic Jester]

Slice bacon into 1/4" bits, then fry it in a skillet. Most pizzerias get theirs already chopped and cooked (I saw a gigantic bag of this very product at Costco the last time I was there), but you'll pay quite a premium for convenience in that case.