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Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar Recipe

Our Maple Bacon recipe will wow your brunch guests. With just four ingredients, it’s one of the best and easiest brunch recipes you can create in your home kitchen.

Close up of one strip of Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar

There’s nothing like throwing a brunch for friends and family but it can be a challenge to pull off well.

It’s not like you can just make one showcase dish and then serve it to a round of oohs and ahhs. Brunch requires a diversity of dishes that includes eggs, breads and other starches. The number of options can be overwhelming.

Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar with eggs and fried potatoes
Maple Bacon is the star whenever we serve it for brunch.

Protein takes a starring role in most brunch menus.

Besides omelets and other egg dishes, you can make sausage, ham and our personal favorite – bacon. Making bacon is so easy. You just pop it into a 400°F/205°C oven and you’re good to go.

While thick, perfectly cooked bacon may make people happy for an hour, it’s probably not enough to wow your guests. After all, you want to give them a brunch they’ll remember for the rest of the day and beyond.

Enter Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar

Extreme Close up of Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar
Maple Brown Sugar Bacon has a wow factor that’s impossible to ignore.

There’s little doubt that Maple Brown Sugar Bacon will wow your guests.

In our recipe, the fat from rendered bacon mixes with crunchy bits of caramelized sugar and maple syrup to become more than the sum of the parts. The resulting amped-up bacon will take your taste buds from acoustic to electric.

Be warned. This recipe may become a go-to dish for all future brunches. Either way, there’s no doubt that it gives your brunch guests a little something extra to remember.

The Challenge

Maple bacon with brown sugar on a parchment sheet
Phew! We didn’t burn this bacon.

Sugar transforms from deep caramel to pitch black coal when it burns. So, if you’re not careful, it only takes a minute or two before amber brown bacon turns into an acrid shoe.

Luckily, the 2foodtrippers test kitchen has come to the rescue!

We’ve conducted multiple tests to create a great recipe that produces luscious maple sugar bacon without burning. The key is to know when to brush the bacon with the maple brown sugar solution while the bacon is cooking. Don’t worry – that step is in our recipe.

Maple Brown Sugar Bacon Ingredients

Mise en Place for maple bacon with brown sugar
Our Maple Brown Sugar Bacon only has four ingredients – bacon, dark brown sugar, maple sugar and salt.

Our recipe only requires the following four ingredients:

  • Bacon
  • Dark Brown Sugar
  • Maple Syrup
  • Salt

Of course, like most recipes, you’ll only get out what you put into to this Maple Bacon recipe. In other words – don’t skimp on the ingredients!

Bacon

Raw bacon - Birdseye view
It’s time to make the bacon!

We use American-style smoked pork belly bacon with plenty of fat on it. Specifically, we buy an artisan pork product and have it sliced about ¼” thick.

Pro Tip
Beware of the product they call bacon in countries like England. That product, which is from the pork back, is way too lean for this recipe.

Dark Brown Sugar

brown sugar in a prep bowl
A little bit of brown sugar goes a long way.

We always attempt to achieve maximum flavor in our recipes.

Thanks to the addition of molasses, brown sugar’s deep caramelized flavors provide an added dimension to this dish. Magic happens when brown sugar combines with the fat flavors from the bacon.

Buy a box of dark brown sugar if you don’t have a box in your pantry.

Maple Syrup

Canadian Maple Syrup in Bottle
Using Grade A maple sugar is a must in this recipe.

We use grade A maple syrup from Canada and we highly recommend that you do the same.

You’ll want to stay away from store brands that are too thick. Also stay away from grade B maple syrup. Both syrup products cook faster and may burn.

Buy a bottle of amber Grade A maple syrup if you don’t have any in your pantry.

Salt

Salt in a yellow bowl
Salt makes this and other recipes taste better.

While bacon carries a lot of salt, there’s something about adding salt to sugar that electrifies this dish and brings it alive. You could get away with not adding salt but the added salt brings big time flavor.

How to Make Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar

Maple bacon with brown sugar closeup on a plate
Our Maple Brown Sugar Bacon recipe is so easy that you’ll want to make it again and again.

This recipe proves that great cooking can be easy.

In a nutshell, we first prepare a brown sugar maple mixture. We then place the bacon in the oven and apply the mixture at a specific point in the cooking process.

Read on for the step-by-step instructions.

Mixing brown sugar with maple syrup and salt
The combination of maple syrup, brown sugar and salt is addictively delicious.

The first step is to preheat your oven to 400°F/205°C. At the same time, you’ll want to mix the maple syrup, brown sugar and salt with a tablespoon, making sure to break up any large clumps of brown sugar.

Placing raw bacon on a parchment lined baking sheet
You bacon will fit on one pan if you arrange it strategically.

Place the cold bacon on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Placing raw bacon into an oven
The oven is where this recipe’s magic happens.

Place the bacon in the center of your preheated oven.

Brushing maple brown sugar mixture on bacon
Don’t be shy when you coat the bacon.

Once the bacon has cooked for 7 minutes, open the oven and brush the maple mixture liberally all over the top. There’s no need to flip the bacon and brush both sides since the solution will run off the top and coat the bottom.

Place the coated bacon back in the oven and cook for 5 to 6 minutes until the bacon is a deep amber brown.

Pro Tip
It’s important to keep an eye on your bacon especially once the maple brown sugar solution is brushed on. You don’t want to fail the burning challenge.

Once you pull the pan out of the oven, set the bacon on a cooling rack placed on top of a sheet pan. You’ll want to let the bacon rest here before you serve it to your guests.

Potatoes, Avocado,Eggs and Maple Bacon on a White Plate with a Red Placemat
We paired this Maple Bacon with scrambled eggs, pan fried potatoes and fresh avocado. How you plate your Maple Bacon is up to you.

Try not to eat the Maple Bacon before your guests arrive. This is the recipe’s second challenge.

Maple Bacon Recipe with Brown Sugar

Maple bacon on a plate with a red background

Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar

Yield: 4 servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 13 minutes
Total Time: 18 minutes

Our Maple Bacon with Brown Sugar recipe turns any brunch into a celebration.

Ingredients

  • 2/3 pound of thick cut bacon (8 slices)
  • 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons grade A maple syrup
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat a convection oven to 400°F/205°C
  2. While the oven is preheating, mix the brown sugar, maple syrup and salt with a metal spoon, making sure to break up any large clumps
  3. Lay out the bacon on a half-sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
  4. Once the oven is preheated, place the bacon in the oven for 7 minutes
  5. After 7 minutes, open the oven and add the maple brown sugar mixture with a pastry brush. You only need to brush one side of the bacon.
  6. Place the bacon back into the oven and cook for an additional 5 minutes or until the bacon is a deep amber brown. Keep an eye on it since the sugar can burn quickly.
  7. Remove the bacon and place it on a cooling rack over a sheet pan. Do not use paper towels to dry the bacon since the sugar mixture will cause the bacon to stick.
  8. Serve with eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes, or your favorite brunch dish.

Notes

  • Be sure to use smoked pork belly bacon.
  • We used a convection oven. If you're using a conventional oven, adjust the times accordingly.

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About the Authors

About the Authors

Daryl & Mindi Hirsch

Saveur Magazine’s BEST TRAVEL BLOG award winners Daryl and Mindi Hirsch share their culinary travel experiences and recipes on the 2foodtrippers website and YouTube. The married Food and Travel content creators live in Lisbon, Portugal.

Disclosures

Article Updates
We update our articles regularly. Some updates are major while others are minor link changes and spelling corrections. Let us know if you see anything that needs to be updated in this article.

Funding
We purchased the ingredients and tools used to create this recipe.

Original Publication Date: May 9, 2022

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