Jowl Bacon

Pastured pork jowl bacon. The jowl is the cheek. You might see jowl listed on some of the higher end restaurant menus, which is where we first learned about it (after raising pigs for several years!). Now we've come to discover that this is a succulent cut of meat (fatty & tender) that those in the know will go to extreme lengths to get! 

If you haven't tried it, you should! But there are a few things to know. 

1. It is not as linear and uniformly sized as regular bacon. Jowl bacon is all different shapes and sizes (b/c the jowl is kind of shaped like a strange football) with more uneven fat and muscle distribution. It's regular bacon's quirky cousin. 
2. While regular bacon cooks quickly and evenly at medium high heat. Jowl bacon does not. The key to successfully cooking jowl bacon is patience. The cut needs more time at lower heat to properly cook. It's a subtle but important difference. When done slowly but surely, jowl bacon will provide an intensely flavored and wonderfully textured treat.
   1. Try cooking it over medium low heat in a cast iron skillet
   2. Or, at 375 in an air fryer.
3. Many of our customers swear that jowl bacon has far more bacon flavor than regular bacon! So this is the bacon to use if you want to impress some discerning bacon lovers in your life. 

Back to the restaurant. Why does food taste better when you eat out? Because restaurants aren't afraid to use fat (like in jowl bacon) and salt! Save yourself some money AND treat yourself to fine dining right at home. 

Typically you'll find jowl bacon in Hoppin' John on New Years Day. Why? Because pigs only want to move in a forward direction* and so should you! Some people believe the more pork you eat on NYD the fatter your wallet will become. I mean, no harm in testing this theory right??

So if you haven't had jowl bacon yet, NOW is the time to right your ship and I would VERY HIGHLY recommend starting with our Cheeky Collards recipe. 

*This is why we use electric fence PLUS a physical and highly visible fence when training them to electric. If you just had an electric wire they would run forward or through it when they got shocked. 

Recipes

• Can be swapped out for any recipe calling for regular bacon
• Cheeky Collards (START HERE! 😋)
• Artichokes and Bacon
• Epic BLT
• Pair with good eggs for an indulgent and delicious breakfast to remember. 
• Any recipes that call for pork belly (and are going to be good with a smoky flavor)
• PERFECT for collard greens, in baked beans or in carbonara.