Vegetarian Bacon

If you love the taste of bacon, but not the bacon itself because it comes from animals, you can easily make your own vegetarian bacon. To do this you need slices of tofu. Marinate the tofu in tamari for a few hours and then fry it in liquid smoke. You can add pepper and onions if you wish, but you definitely do need to add salt to give the tofu the bacon flavour. Fry the tofu just as you would bacon, by turning it over to fry both sides. The texture is quite good – crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside.

You can also purchase your vegetarian bacon in the supermarket. One of the well-known brands of this type of vegetarian cuisine in the UK is Quorn’s Streaky Bacon Style Strips. You can also get these in a smoked flavour. They are long pink slices that you can fry or cook in the microwave. Although they don’t look like rashers of bacon, they do have the same smell and taste.

The ingredients used in making vegetarian bacon include:

Mycoprotein
Rapeseed oil
Water
Flavouring such as iron oxides, colour, wheat and smoke flavouring
Dried free range egg white
Gelling agents
Locust bean and guar gums
Dextrose
Humectant
Glycerine

Mycoprotein is a product made from processed edible fungi and is used in making many commercially produced vegetarian foods.

Vegetarian bacon is low in fat and contains lots of protein. It does not have any cholesterol, but it does have plenty of fibre. Two slices contain only 74 calories.