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I was reading this question, and there's a solution to the OP's answer. I'm not fond of salt and this is a drawback for bacon (to me, that is). I do want to end up with pieces of cooked bacon (so mixing in milk or less bacon won't work), but less salty. Where I live, we also don't have 10 brands of bacon, so choosing the brand with the smallest amount of salt isn't good enough.

Is there a way that I can reduce the saltiness of bacon?

I don't care about the actual salt percentage. I'm curious about salt perception, so masking up the salt would be nice.

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  • Related: cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/17141/…
    – Mien
    May 29, 2012 at 19:56
  • Despite your disclaimers, this question seems like a duplicate of those... Just because you don't like the answers, re-asking won't necessarily get you a better answer? shrug
    – talon8
    May 29, 2012 at 20:43
  • @talon8 that wasn't my intention. I'm not asking how to get rid of the salt itself. I'm asking how I can cover up the saltiness. It can be either something with the bacon itself or with a pairing of the bacon.
    – Mien
    May 29, 2012 at 20:51
  • Ahh, my mistake then, I appologize. I understand now... You could try "rinsing" it, or soaking it in water? shrug I'm not sure what that would do or if it would work. Sort of a reverse-brine?
    – talon8
    May 29, 2012 at 21:20
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    Buy pork belly instead? Then you can salt it to taste.
    – smcg
    Jul 14, 2012 at 4:12

7 Answers 7

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Soak and rinse... completely immerse the side of bacon for a few hours in clean, cold ice-water, drain, rinse, and repeat. A cooler is best for this, as it keeps the meat cool and offers lots of water for the salt to dilute into, otherwise a use a large pot in the fridge.

The downside is that this may also affect the "cure" - the smoke-flavor that many manufacturers add in lieu of actually smoking the bacon. Higher quality bacon may not have this issue (but then again, higher quality bacon won't be so salty).

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The saltiness can be reduced by blanching. You will probably need to experiment with blanching times to find what you prefer.

Method:

  1. Bring a shallow pan of water to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low.
  2. Place bacon in simmering water for 30-60 seconds.
  3. Blot it dry with paper towels.
  4. Cook it however you would normally.

If you just want to mask the saltiness you could try cutting the saltiness with sweetness by making bacon candy, or just eat it with a little bit of maple syrup. You can also cut the saltiness by adding a bit of acid by spritzing it with lemon juice.

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I get "fresh side" from a local farmer. It's basically bacon that hasn't gone through the curing process to actually turn it into bacon. Since it doesn't have any salt or anything in it, I typically salt the meat as I'm eating it. This would be an easy way to get the exact amount of salt you want. It doesn't taste exactly like bacon, but it's delicious!

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    Sounds like you're talking about pork belly, mentioned in the comments on the question too.
    – Cascabel ♦
    Aug 31, 2012 at 21:11
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We have just finished curing and smoking a pork belly. We tested a slice and found it was extremely salty. We had rinsed and rinsed, and then let it soak in cold water for 2 hours. Still it was so salty we couldn't eat it. We decided to rinse and soak again even though it had been smoked. We took a scraper to it to scrape off what we could. I was thinking we'd have to re-smoke it, but another test strip revealed it still held its smokiness. We were able to save the bacon!

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Bacon when well cooked loses a substantial amount of it's sodium content. just cook it well and be sure to drain it properly on paper towel. Remove as much of the bacon grease as possible as it will contain much of the sodium from the bacon. Some manufacturers will even tell you in the nutritional info on the package how much sodium is removed after cooking

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Blanching or just soaking in water helps remove salt. I cure my own bacon and smoke it. I make a practice of washing off the salt cure, then soaking it for one hour in water prior to smoking it. That gets rid of salt and I get a less salty bacon.

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You can also add potato chunks to the water as potatoes love to soak up salt....

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    Unfortunately, this is a kitchen myth that has been proven wrong.
    – Stephie ♦
    Oct 6, 2016 at 13:41
  • @Stephie I don't doubt it at all, but I'm interested in a reference for that?
    – James
    Oct 8, 2016 at 2:15
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    @James see genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/potatosponge.html and thekitchn.com/…. In short, potatoes can reduce the percieved saltiness a bit, but can't "draw out" salt.
    – Stephie ♦
    Oct 8, 2016 at 7:37

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