THE BACON CONUNDRUM: APPENDIX A

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Most of the flavor people recognize in bacon is a combination of fat, salt, and smoke. When I’ve had to impart a vegetarian dish with a bacon flavor I’ve used Chipotle in Adobo. This comes in particularly handy because it adds a bit of spice, a texture that approximates cooked bacon fat, salt, and smoky flavor (Chipotle is smoked Jalapenos)  Of course not everyone likes the extra spice, so there are plenty of other things you can use to approximate Bacon without using odd little processed foods.

I - Salt

Load whatever you’re making with salt. It’s really that simple. Kosher salt works pretty well, but really use whatever you’d like - knock yourself out.

II - Fat
Try an Olive Oil/ Truffle Oil blend - you’ll get a healthy fat with a bit of earthy tones reminiscent of bacon fat.

II - Smoke

Smoking indoors can be quite a bother. If you’ve got a range with a fan that vents outdoors or a grill of your own you can do your own ‘hot smoke’ to get you on your way to your own bacon substitute.

Some simple smoking guides are available at websites like allrecipes.com, but doing it yourself is pretty simple. You see it all the time on shows like Iron Chef America.

Basically,
Take a pot with a lid,
Place your woodchips down the bottom,
Put a rack over that,
On the rack place whatever you’d like to smoke, (Eggplant, Carrots, Tofu, Bell Peppers, Poblano Peppers, and New Mexico Chilies all work quite well, or if you‘d like to make your own natural version of liquid smoke try using olive oil or butter placed in a ceramic bowl on the rack.)
Put the pot on a low heat burner
Put the lid on the pot
Keep an eye on the pot, occasionally swirling it around.
Smoke the veggies for about a half an hour to an hour. *
Experiment this so you can get whatever sort of texture you’d like.
* if you do this next to your mom’s set of fancy kitchen drapes you will never get the smell of smoke out.

So, in short: if you’d like your own vegan bacon just coat some veggies in an olive oil/truffle oil blend, sprinkle ‘em with kosher salt, and smoke ‘em.

If you want bacon flavored popcorn, smoke some oil using the process I just described, and use it to cook your popcorn.

Vegan Bacon Mayonnaise? Take a vegan mayo recipe and smoke the oil and add a little extra salt.