Home-Cured Bacon Without Nitrates and Without Sugar

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Learn how to make your own home-cured bacon without nitrates and without sugar.

Nitrate-free and sugar-free bacon

Nitrate-free bacon is one of my family’s favorite treats. They love it so much, that making it at home is one of my favorite ways to save money and still enjoy a classic breakfast of bacon and eggs without any added chemicals. 

I love making this for my family so much and I strongly believe that you will, too. It’s unbelievably delicious. You won’t believe how easy it is to make your own home-cured bacon without nitrates and without sugar!

If you’re looking for more healthy recipes, you’ll want to check out my GAPS diet breakfast ideas and my flourless blueberry muffins.

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Understanding the Risks of Nitrate-Containing Bacon

In our home, we purchase our meat from a local farmer. We have found that it is more cost-effective and the meat is healthier than the meat available at our local grocery store. This includes the pork that we eat, like bacon. 

Since our local meat processor uses traditional bacon curing techniques that include nitrates that my family tries to avoid, we choose to cure our own.

We try to avoid nitrates for a few reasons, and the National Institute of Health has research to support this. Essentially the study claims that nitrates are a chemical that your body cannot break down naturally. In fact, your gut biome can only turn nitrate into another chemical called nitrite, which is found to increase the risk of cancer. 

Besides, curing your own bacon isn’t that difficult. All it takes is a few steps and about 10 days and you can have healthy all-natural bacon for your family. 

Essential Ingredients and Tools for Nitrate-Free Curing

One of the best parts about curing your own bacon is that it only takes a few quick steps with even fewer ingredients. With how busy all of our lives are, a simple DIY bacon preparation is something that I think we can all get behind.

1. Before you begin, drill 10-15 holes into the bottom of one of your two plastic tubs. This helps drain the liquid that the salt is pulling out so that the meat dries properly. 
2. Make sure to use food grade material tubs.
3. Whenever I use salt in a meal, I try to use Celtic sea salt or Baja Gold sea salt for its natural electrolytes and flavorful seasoning.  
4. Since this will sit in your fridge uncovered for 10 days, make sure you have a spot where it can sit unbothered. I like to clear the top shelf of my fridge so that I don’t need to move it to reach other foods and to keep any curious little fingers away from the raw meat. 
5. If your meat does not come pre-cut into bacon slices, I recommend using a meat slicer or a sharp butcher knife to help you slice the meat evenly. This will help when it comes time to smoke the meat or fry it up on your cast iron skillet. 

Ingredients & Supplies You’ll Need

Ingredients:

• Pork belly
• Celtic sea salt (coarser salt works best)
• Two food grade plastic tubs
• Optional: Natural sugar like maple sugar or all-natural cane sugar (leave out if you’re avoiding sugar, like if you’re on the GAPS diet.)
  

Steps to make home-cured bacon:

1. Place the tub with holes into the other bin and coat the bottom with a layer of salt and the optional sugar. 
2. Lay pork belly on the 
3. Add another layer of salt to the meat.
4. Fat side down, add another layer of meat and top with more salt
5. Place in the fridge for 5 days, uncovered.
6. Once the 5 days are done, remove the bacon from the tubs. You should notice some liquid in the bottom of the lower tub. Wash the tubs really well.
7. Repeat steps 1-4 and place the meat in the opposite layer. If it was on the bottom for those first five days, place it on the top for this next section of curing. 
8. After five more days in the fridge, remove the meat from the tubs and rinse all of the salt off. Pat dry with paper towels. 
9. Optional – If you have access to a smoker, now is the time you would want to smoke for 8-12 hours (you can go as long as 24 hours).
10. If your pork belly is not already sliced into bacon slices, now is when you would slice your pork belly into bacon slices. 
11. Store in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months. 

Tips for The Best Home-Cured Bacon Results

1. If you are using cane sugar, add it in a 1:1 ratio of sugar and salt. For every cup of salt, add one cup of cane sugar. For Maple Sugar, you will want to use a 1:2 ratio of sugar and salt. For every cup of salt added, use ½ cup of maple sugar. 
2. On your pork belly, you should notice that one side is mostly white, which is the fat (you might see some skin) and the other is pink, which is the meat. For this process, you will have the best results if you lay the fat side facing down in the tub. 
3. The purpose of the salt is to draw the liquid of the meat, so don’t be surprised when you notice liquid at the bottom of your plastic tubs.
4. The coarser the salt you have for this process, the better the results will be. Not only will it help draw out more liquid, but washing it off will be easier.  

Why choose traditional nitrate-free curing? 

One of the biggest questions I get about nitrate-free curing is how the taste differentiates from traditional bacon purchased at the store. To me, the flavor of the meat is stronger and tastes incredible. Plus, you are totally in control of all of the ingredients!

Cooking your homemade nitrate-free and sugar-free bacon

1. If you are on the GAPs diet, cast-iron skillet bacon frying is one of the best treats that you can give yourself. Not only is it so tasty, but bacon-free of chemicals is going to leave you more satisfied and feeling great. 
2. If you do have a smoker, then making homemade smoked bacon is one of the tastiest treats that you can make! It is optional, but adding in a smoky flavor for up to 24 hours will really add a flavor that I think is worth the extra time. 
3. Another way to cook your home-cured bacon is in the oven on a stainless steel baking tray. This is one of my favorite ways to cook bacon when I need to feed a lot of mouths fast or when I need cooked bacon for a recipe. 

Home-Cured Bacon without Nitrates and without Sugar Video

Other posts I think you will love

Sourdough Dinner Rolls Recipe

GAPS Diet Beef Roast Recipe

Share Your Bacon Adventures

Comment Below with Your Home-Cured Creations! Are you team bacon only for breakfast, or team bacon is an “all the time” food like our family who loves bacon?

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Celtic sea salt

Two food grade plastic tubs

Natural sugar like maple sugar

All-natural cane sugar

Stainless Steel Baking Sheet

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GAPS™ and Gut and Psychology Syndrome™ are the trademark and copyright of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.

The information in this blog post is my personal experience and opinion. It is for general information purposes only, may not apply to you as an individual, and is not a substitute for your own physician’s medical care or advice. Always seek advice from your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding nutrition, medical conditions, and advice. Never disregard medical advice or delay seeking medical care because of something you have read on this blog.