Bacon Jam

Adapted from Tasty Kitchen. I loved the step by step photos provided here. The original recipe called for four whole onions; I cut that down to three for my taste.

3 pounds bacon, cut into 1-inch strips
3 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
8 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups strongly brewed black coffee
1/2 cup maple syrup (use the real stuff!)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add bacon and cook until the bacon is browned and crisp, stirring frequently. Transfer the bacon to a plate lined with a paper towel to soak up the grease. Drain almost all of the bacon grease from the Dutch oven, leaving about 2 tablespoons of grease for the rest of the recipe. Tasty Kitchen suggests saving the bacon grease — there’s quite a lot left over!

Add the onions and garlic into the Dutch oven, over medium-high heat. Stir well and reduce to medium. Cook for eight minutes. The onions will become mostly translucent.

In the meantime, whisk together the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl to a create the liquid base. Add to the Dutch oven and stir well. Bring it all to a boil, stirring frequently, and boil hard for two minutes. Stir in the bacon.

Leaving uncovered, simmer the jam, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. If it starts to dry out, add about 1/4 cup of water. Take it off the heat when the onions are super-soft and it’s all syrupy-thick (this took about two hours of simmering for my batch). Let it stand for 5 minutes.

Using a food processor, Vitamix, or blender, pulse several times until the jam is your preferred consistency . I used a basic blender, as it was all that I had on hand in the kitchen at the time. To make it easier, I did a little at a time, but with a  food processor, you can process all of it at once.

Scrape the jam into one or more jars with tight fitting lids. I put it into several to share with friends. Store in the fridge up to one month. I think it tastes best warmed up.

Originally published in “I Wanna Jam It With Bacon”