If you’re a fan of sweet and salty flavors, you’ll love our chipotle candied bacon! This delicious breakfast recipe is easy to make in big batches so you can make this for a crowd. It’s dairy free and gluten free, and we included a paleo option as well.
If you love sweet, salty, and spicy all together in one crisp breakfast food, this candied bacon recipe is for you!
Growing up, my dad often cooked breakfast on Sunday mornings and he showed us how to cook our favorite thick peppered bacon in the oven with brown sugar sprinkled on it. SO YUMMY. It’s been one of my favorite breakfast foods ever since, and my kids have become fans as well.
For our version of brown sugar bacon, we added some spice with chipotle chili powder and black pepper. It’s perfect for anyone who loves a sweet, salty, and spicy combo for breakfast!
Cooking bacon in the oven is a life changer if you haven’t tried it yet: it’s less messy and has more consistent results than cooking in a pan on the stove. Plus you can cook a big batch of bacon in one go rather than having to cook in small batches.
Allergy notes for our bacon recipe:
- Dairy free
- Egg free
- Gluten free (if you have celiac, pick a certified gluten free brand of bacon)
- Peanut and tree nut free
- Has a paleo option
How to make chipotle candied bacon
For this recipe, we take my favorite way to cook bacon (in the oven) and add some sweet and spicy to it!
Here are the steps to make brown sugar bacon (the full recipe is at the end of the post):
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F and line 2 baking sheet pans with parchment paper. Use 2 pans if you’re making a full pound of bacon.
- Don’t skip the parchment paper since the brown sugar can get pretty sticky! Using parchment paper will keep the bacon from sticking to the pan and it will help prevent burning.
- While the oven is heating up, arrange the bacon evenly on the baking sheet pans.
- Mix together the brown sugar, the chipotle powder, and the black pepper.
- Sprinkle the brown sugar mixture evenly over each piece of bacon, dividing the brown sugar evenly.
- Bake the bacon, starting with 12 minutes and adding time on at 2 minute increments (checking each time) until the bacon is crisp to your liking and the sugar is melted and caramelized.
- The amount of time will depend on the bacon thickness and your preferred crisp level. Our thick cut bacon took about 15 to 17 minutes to cook to medium crispiness.
- Allow the bacon to cool for about 10 minutes before serving. The melted sugar will be pretty hot at first so give this at least 5 minutes to cool before eating.
We used a thick cut bacon for this recipe and it took about 15-17 minutes to get the crispiness we liked. If you have thin bacon or don’t want our bacon very crispy, start with 12 to 13 minutes and add more time as you prefer.
How to make this recipe paleo
If you’d like to make our spicy candied bacon paleo, use an uncured bacon (like we did) and replace the brown sugar with a few natural granulated sweetener. Here are a few options to consider:
- Coconut sugar
- Maple sugar
- Date sugar (I’m not sure how this would do on bacon since it has the whole date fruit including fiber and won’t dissolve)
- Honey powder (this does contain tapioca starch)
We haven’t tried making this recipe with any of these other options, but out of the ones I listed above, the coconut sugar and maple sugar will probably work the best for brown sugar bacon!
I don’t recommend replacing the brown sugar in our recipe with anything liquid since it will just melt and run off the bacon as the bacon fat melts. Granulated sugars will stick to the bacon better and create that caramelized layer rather than just run off the bacon.
Check out our other allergy friendly breakfast recipes!
- Paleo Breakfast Skillet
- Homemade Turkey Breakfast Sausage
- Gluten Free Dairy Free Brunch Recipes
- Gluten Free Pear Coffee Cake
Easy Chipotle Candied Bacon
Ingredients
- 1 to 1.25 pounds uncured bacon (we use the thick cut Hormel Natural Choice bacon)
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon chipotle chili powder (or cayenne powder)
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F and line 2 baking sheet pans with parchment paper and set aside. Don't skip the parchment paper here because the sugar will cause quite a bit of sticking to the pan without it.
- While the oven is heating up, arrange the bacon evenly across the 2 baking sheet pans.
- Mix together the brown sugar, chili powder, and black pepper.
- Sprinkle the brown sugar mixture evenly over the bacon slices.
- Bake the bacon in the oven until the bacon is crisp to your liking and the sugar is caramelized on the bacon. Start by baking for 12 minutes then adding time in 2 minute increments until the bacon is crisp to your liking (this will depend on the thickness of the bacon).
- With our thick cut bacon, it took about 15 to 17 minutes to get the way I like it, but if you have thinner sliced bacon or you want less crispy bacon, it might only take 12 minutes to cook your bacon.
- Remove the bacon from the oven and allow to cool on the pan for about 5 to 10 minutes before serving. The sugar will be pretty hot, so you'll need to make sure it cools for at least 5 minutes before you serve it.
- Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
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Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
I wonder if we could melt some dairy free chocolate and dunk or drizzle on them.
You could probably do that if you like a bacon/chocolate combo!