Curing Sliced Pork Belly (Rashers of Bacon)

December 7, 2012  •  Meat & Poultry, Technique

I’ve written here many times about buying meat from local farmers and ranchers. Nothing excites me so much in the food world as the day I get the call that my half hog is ready at the processor. I drive the hour or so north east of Denver to pick it up and can’t wait to get home and make pancetta from the pork belly that I always ask them to leave unsmoked and uncured. Unfotunately, this year I arrived to find that they had gone ahead and sliced the pork belly into thick slices and wrapped them as rashers of uncured bacon. Well that stumped me…but only for a minute!I don’t have the means to smoke the bacon (although I would love to try applewood smoking it someday), but I do have a great curing spice mix that I used for my pancetta last year. So I experimented with a single package of the pork belly slices, which is about a pound, rubbed my curing spice blend all over each slice, then stacked them one on top of each other.I wrapped the slices tightly in plastic wrap then put the whole thing in a Ziploc bag to cure in the refrigerator.I figured I would just try a 10-14 day cure like I used for pancetta, and it turns out that was perfect.After the curing, because every single slice is slathered with curing spices which include a ton of salt (both pink and kosher), it’s really critical to rinse them very well and get as much of that off as you can. Normally when making pancetta after rinsing off the curing spice I would hang it to dry inside my spare refrigerator for another 10-14 days, but since the slices are so thin I feared this would overly dry it and leave me with jerky instead of bacon. So instead I laid the rinsed slices on layers of paper towels on a baking sheet, blotted the top with more towels to remove as much moisture as possible, then let it air dry in the refrigerator just overnight. I cooked up one piece to make sure it worked, and it was perfect – so perfect that I gobbled it down with my eggs and forgot to snap a photo of it. So if you find yourself with any fabulous thick sliced pork belly, by all means give this a try.

Comments

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  1. Reply

    Michelle Rogers says:

    Are you able to give me the recipe for the spices for the sliced bacon. Also, can u freeze it after you have rinsed the curing spices off?

    September 8, 2013 at 5:04 am

  2. Reply

    Annie says:

    Hi! I am in a similar predicament. Never cured anything so doing lots of reading but the directions I’ve read call for unsliced pork belly. Our kids (and I!!) really want bacon. But we’ve got these slices of fresh (frozen but uncured) pork belly. Weee you at all concerned about using too much? It seems a long time to let the salt penetrate the slices.

    February 9, 2014 at 7:28 pm

    • Reply

      Michele says:

      Annie, the bacon is a bit strong flavored doing it this way, as so much of the meat is covered with curing mix. But since I usually use the bacon in a dish (as opposed to just eating slices of bacon) then it seems to work well for me. My preference, however, is to have a whole belly that I cure and turn into pancetta, which is what I’ll be doing this time!

      February 25, 2014 at 3:37 pm

  3. Reply

    Chris Mauck says:

    I have normally sliced raw pork belly/bacon. Would this curing seasoning work as shown above or should I only let it sit in the fridge for a week or so?

    September 16, 2014 at 4:27 pm

    • Reply

      Michele says:

      Chris, I have used my normal pancetta seasoning on curing rashers, but must say the taste is very strong. It might be best to lay a batch of slices together and just use the cure rub on the outside instead of between every slice.

      September 19, 2014 at 9:49 am

  4. Reply

    Bernie wrezinski says:

    So what’s the cure recipe

    November 6, 2014 at 6:40 am

  5. Reply

    Michael Matthew says:

    Hi Michelle,

    Thanks for this article!

    I’m trying to educate myself about curing and do not like sugar on my meat.

    Is there any reason that you know of that I can’t just use salt in this process?

    Thanks so much.

    October 24, 2016 at 5:32 pm

  6. Reply

    Matt says:

    How long after the curing has been done will the slices last, shelf life wise, if kept in the refrigerator and a sealed plastic bag?

    November 5, 2016 at 10:49 am

  7. Reply

    LeeAnn says:

    Unable to print this recipe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    June 8, 2020 at 7:55 pm

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