We all know it as Canadian bacon. It’s delicious; goes great on pizza, breakfast sandwiches, or on its own, fried, with a little maple syrup drizzled over it. We have the easiest way for you to make it yourself and it only takes a few days! Follow these steps below to ensure you have a beautiful breakfast being cooked up next Saturday morning!
THE BASICS
Canadian bacon all starts with the back meat of the pig. You can find it as “pork loin” at your local grocery store. This is different than a pork tenderloin, which is leaner and smaller. Canadian bacon is also cured less than our traditional bacon, which comes from the pig’s belly – check out our recipe for that here: [INSERT HOMEMADE BACON RECIPE LINK HERE]. Both are incredibly delicious but both are prepared quite differently. For this treat, you’ll be utilizing a “wet brine,” meaning it’ll be submerged in a liquid brine for four days.
THE BRINE
This first step is important because it takes time just to get going! We start with the following ingredients:
- An 8-10 pound pork loin
- A gallon of boiling water
- ½ cup of white sugar
- ½ cup of brown sugar
- 1 ½ cups of coarse kosher salt
- 8-10 teaspoons of quick cure or pink salt
- 1 cup of real maple syrup
Start by boiling your water then adding both sugars, kosher salt, and curing/pink salt. Stir and then reduce the heat to a simmer; stirring occasionally until the sugar and salt has completely dissolved.
Once dissolved, remove from the heat and let sit at room temperature until it is safe enough to put in the refrigerator to chill.
MITCH TIP: This chilling process can take anywhere from 4-6 hours so plan ahead!
Once chilled, bring your untrimmed pork loin and your brine out of the fridge. Place your loin in an airtight container that’s big enough for both the loin and the brine. Pour the brine over it and tightly close the lid.
MITCH TIP: loins are so lean that there really is no reason to trim them.
This container now sits for the next four days; curing. Do not open it, do not flip anything, simply set it and forget it.
MITCH TIP: Set an alarm on your calendar for 96 hours so you know exactly when to remove the loin from the container and the brine.
THE COOK
96 hours has FLOWN by and you’re ready to remove your cured loin from its brine bath. Remove from brine, completely rinse your loin, pat completely dry, then place on a wire rack, put that on a cookie sheet, and return to the fridge for 12-24 hours.
MITCH TIP: Bonus points for your taste buds if you can go 24 hours!
Once those 24 hours are up. Fire up your smoker and remove your loin from the fridge. It now has a nice, sticky exterior that’ll help smoke CLING to it!
I prefer to set my grill temp at 200 degrees for this one. I place my loin on the center of the grill, place my thermometer in the center of the loin, and roll smoke on it until the internal temperature of the loin reaches 150 degrees. You may go anywhere between 145 and 155 internal degrees, but we loved how 150 always turned out!
This next step is, to me, super important and often skipped over: after you remove your loin from the grill, let it sit out at room temperature for a half hour THEN place it in your refrigerator for at least four hours. This allows the loin to ease back up, stay tender, and then after it’s been chilled, it makes slicing super easy!
SLICING, SEALING, AND COOKING
You can trim Canadian bacon super thin, medium, super thick; or however else you may like it. We prefer about 1/16” in thickness – we find it fries best in a pan that way. That’s also how we recommend cooking our Canadian bacon.
For keeping: we recommend 10 days in your fridge at most; after that, freeze any leftovers.
Best way to cook it: place on a pan on your stove on medium-high heat. Cook for 3-4 minutes and then flip. Cook the next side for 1-2 minutes and remove. It’s perfect every time and you can accompany this with eggs, on a beautiful breakfast sandwich [HYPERLINK TO RECIPE FOUND HERE], or just on its own – the flavor is THAT good!
INGREDIENTS AND INSTRUCTIONS
- An 8-10 pound pork loin
- A gallon of boiling water
- ½ cup of white sugar
- ½ cup of brown sugar
- 1 ½ cups of coarse kosher salt
- 8-10 teaspoons of quick cure or pink salt
- 1 cup of real maple syrup
Boil water then add both sugars, kosher salt, and curing/pink salt. Stir and then reduce the heat to a simmer; stirring occasionally until the sugar and salt has completely dissolved.
Once dissolved, remove from the heat and let sit at room temperature until it is safe enough to put in the refrigerator to chill.
Once chilled, bring your untrimmed pork loin and your brine out of the fridge. Place your loin in an airtight container that’s big enough for both the loin and the brine. Pour the brine over it and tightly close the lid.
Let container sit for four days!
Remove loin from brine
Fire up pellet grill to 200 degrees
Place loin on center of grill and insert thermometer in center of loin
Smoke loin until IT of 150 and remove
Let sit at room temperature for a half hour then place in fridge
Leave in fridge for 4-6 hours before slicing!
