Bacon Freak offers different varieties of gourmet bacon delivered straight to your door every month. The subscription costs $145.95 per quarter – but it’s also available in a month-to-month, 6 month, and 12 month option with discounts for the longer subscriptions. You can choose to receive only bacon that is Nitrate-free, gluten-free, or pepper-free if you like! Bacon Freak ships in the U.S. only, but they have a Canadian version of the subscription (available through the same link) for our friends to the North.
The outer box suggested refrigerating upon arrival, but the bacon itself says it needs refrigeration only after it is opened – now that’s real bacon! This is the second shipment of our subscription, so it has just the bacon, ma’am, just the bacon. The first box of our subscription period included an awesome T-shirt, and we added on a decorative gift box – check out last month’s review to see these items!
The bacon packs are placed in an insulated bag complete with ice packs (though they would probably be just fine even without the ice)! The bacon ships every month during the subscription, and you can choose to have your membership auto-renew on a monthly-billed basis when your term expires.
All the bacon goodness this month!
Coastal Caliente Chipotle Country Bacon: This pack contained about a dozen thick slices of bacon. They were covered in a smoky and slightly spicy chipotle rub, but they weren’t too hot.
The seasoning covers the outside of the slab, with the interior edges of the slices not coated. The seasoning was enough to flavor the entire slab, and the grease produced by cooking it spread the flavor all around.
The pack made a nice stack of bacon. I baked it on a sheetpan – this tends to create the flattest strips with the least shrinkage.
The bacon has great integrity. It doesn’t shrink noticeably when cooked, and the fat and meat portions cook to a very similar consistency.
We served the Caliente bacon along side some Denver Omelettes Quiche from Home Chef for a spicy and protein-packed breakfast!
Boss Hog Gourmet Hickory Smoked Maple Flavored Country Bacon: At first we thought we might have gotten the same bacon as one of our packs last month, as that was Boss Hog Hickory Smoked, too. This month’s selection, however, is Maple Bacon, and it was also sliced thinner.
They recommend either pan frying or microwaving the bacon for best results.
Our previous batch of Boss Hog was super thick cut, with about 11 slices in the pack. This slab was cut into 20 thinner slices. The maple coating became evident when the bacon was cooked, caramelizing heavily. It was also hickory smoked, and the smoke flavor is very intense – this bacon is best enjoyed by those that can handle a bit of salt, a bit of sweet, and a lot of smoke!
I baked some in the oven (left) and pan-fried some (right), as well. This bacon was a bit hard to cook properly. The maple rub had enough sugar to cause the bacon to char easily, so the tips got a little black. It was still sooo delicious – it had a sticky, candied coating, reminding me a bit of Bak Kwa, but crisp instead of chewy. This plate shows about 2/3 of the pack, cooked. I was surprised to see that there wasn’t much shrinkage, even with the slices being thinner.
We wanted to try something fun with our bacon, so we threw together a giant mound of totchos! We dressed our crispy tots with lots of cheddar, our Bacon Freak bacon, jalapenos, roast chopped onion and pepper, and fresh cilantro. We served it with sour cream and a bit of Omnivore Volcano Sauce from our latest Fare Trade Box.
We liked both varieties of bacon, with each being quite different from the other. Surprisingly, the Caliente Chipotle bacon was the less powerfully seasoned bacon from a standpoint of both salt and smoke. The smoke on the Boss Hog was quite bold, stronger than the maple flavor, and it was a little saltier. Both bacons crisped nicely, though the sugar in the maple made it easy to burn. It is clearly different than your typical grocery store bacon, with lots of meat, less shrinkage, and a lot less grease produced from cooking (with no added water sweated out, either).
Comments