The Official Bacon Salt Blog

QVC Food of the Month - Bacon Salt!

We're proud to announce that Bacon Salt has been chosen as QVC's Food of the Month for July. As part of this promotion, we have a special configuration just for QVC that includes large containers of Original, Hickory and Peppered Bacon Salt plus a jar of the very popular Cheddar Bacon Salt, which you can't get in stores yet. There's a limited supply that they'll be selling throughout the month at a low price point (normally they sell three Original, Hickory and Peppered big jars at $19.97 - this configuration sells at $18.60), and you can either watch us on air or order it anytime through their website here.

Here is the QVC Food of the Month broadcast schedule:

• Today (7/2) - airing will take place between 12 noon and 1pm EST
• 7/5 - between noon and 1pm EST
• 7/7 between 6pm-7pm EST
• 7/11 between 3pm-4pm EST
• 7/12 between 2am-3am EST
• 7/27 between 11am-noon EST
• Other airings may be added - keep checking back here

One final note: a HUGE thank you to all of the great people at QVC for their help, support and business. They took a big chance on a couple of crazy guys who had a dream to make everything taste like bacon, and we're really grateful for the opportunity. See you on the air!

Justin & Dave

Where's Baconnaise?

We've been working hard to expand our distribution for Baconnaise. Here's the most up to date list of retailers that carry it, and we'll be posting these to our website soon:

• QFC
• Piggly Wiggly (some, not all)
  
• HyVee
• City Fish
• Copps
• Rainbow Foods
• Lunds and Bylery's
• Jewel-Osco
• Central Market
• Food City
• Marsh
• Publix
• Raley's
• Wegman's

One note - we ALWAYS suggest that you call in advance to check availability. It can sometimes take awhile to get on the shelves, and it varies from store to store.

Internationally, we've also shipped some Baconnaise and Bacon Salt to a distributor in Australia and New Zealand (last we heard the shipment is going through customs now), and Selfridges in the UK will be carrying it within the next month or so (if you're interested in being notified when it gets there please email us at welovetheuk (at) baconnaise - dot- com). We're also working hard on Kroger, we hope to hear back from them soon, as well as HEB and Costco.

If you have stores you think we should be in near you, we've had a lot of success stories of people going in and asking their local store manager to carry it. To those of you that have done this already, thanks for your support! 

Online it's available at Amazon.com, Costco.com and our own website at Baconnaise.com.

Long live bacon,

J&D

Operation Bacon Salt Update - June 2009

We've been pretty busy around here in BaconLand, but that doesn't mean that we've been ignoring our troops. Quite the contrary, we've been sending record numbers of shipments to the Middle East to soldiers that have been deprived of their ability to eat bacon on a regular basis.

These include shipments to:

• Navy Hm2 Michaels from Lejeune, NC, who's unit's work in Afghanistan has been profiled on MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR. They've been called "America's Batallion." This is his 2nd deployment. One of our twitter followers asked us to ship him some bacon-flavored love.
• We didn't make this up - Air Force Ssgt Bacon, who's also from NC and is currently serving in Bagram, Afghanistan, has some bacon-flavored goods on the way to him and the 30 or so troops he serves with. His wife reached out to us letting us know that one of their traditions is to send bacon-themed items to him while he's out in the field.
• Specialist Whyte will be getting a shipment of Baconnaise and Bacon Salt as well as Bacon Lip Balm, courtesy of his friend David who has helped us in our warehouse periodically (and done a great job). Spec Whyte's job is to provide transportation security for trucks that carry supplies to other soldiers in Iraq. When stateside, Spec Whyte enjoys spending time with his 9 month old and 5 year old children.
• We're supporting a dodgeball tournament for troops in Virginia coming up this weekend and just supported a football game here at Fort Lewis in Tacoma.

Whether you agree with the wars or not, these soldiers and their families are giving up a lot to support their country. We hope they enjoy the packages coming their way!

Crabfest with Bacon Salt Garlic Butter and Garlic-Tomato Baconnaise Aoili

It's always Dungeness crab time in the Northwest, but a summer weekend when it's not raining is always a great occasion to break them out. Unfortunately the ones we bought this time were not cleaned, which meant learning more about a crab's anatomy than we would have ever cared to know. This video on how to clean a Dungeness crab was the best resource we found for it.

The crabs were pre-cooked however, which meant that we just had to steam them for 3-4 minutes to warm them up. We usually go one whole crab per person, which yields about 1/2 lb to 1 lb of crab meat. You'll need a crab cracker and a skinny crab fork to pull out the meat (or you can use a claw). We then serve them with these dipping sauces:

Garlic-Bacon Salt Butter

• 1 stick of butter
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1-2 tsp of Bacon Salt (we prefer the Peppered), or more to taste
• Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Melt butter with garlic in a saucepan or in the microwave.

Garlic-Tomato Baconnaise Aioli

• 1 cup Baconnaise
• 1/8 cup ketchup (optional - you can make a non-tomato version)
• 3-5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• Fresh ground black pepper to taste
• Small squeeze of lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together and serve with steamed crab.

Bacon Salt Recipe: Daveburgers

When summer comes rolling around, Christin (aka Bacon Wife) starts requesting my world famous Daveburgers. They're simple to make but really, really good. This year, they were better than ever before as I was able to add some of our newest flavors of Bacon Salt. Enjoy!

Daveburgers

• 3 lbs ground beef
• 1 whole medium white or yellow onion, very finely chopped (the smaller the better)
• Your favorite flavor of Bacon Salt (I used a combination of 3/4 Applewood and 1/4 Cheddar but any flavors or combinations would work)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Cheddar cheese (optional)
• Toasted buns (be sure to get the good hamburger buns)

For garnish:

• Iceberg lettuce
• Sliced tomato
• Baconnaise

Brush some oil onto the grill so the burgers don't stick and preheat until very hot. Mix in the very finely chopped onion, the ground beef, a few turns of a black pepper grinder and very liberal doses of Bacon Salt. Roll the beef into approximately 1/4 to 1/2 lb balls, flatten them in your hands, then put onto tin foil and flatten them even further - I personally like them thin (and usually make them into double burgers) because the onions cook all the way through the burger and taste better.

Add the burgers to the grill and cook approximately 1-2 minutes per side. Add cheese at the end (optional). Add to the toasted buns with iceberg lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and Baconnaise.

Bacon Lip Balm Reviews on Amazon

Amazon's selling the Bacon Lip Balm - and these reviews are really funny.

Baconnaise Recipe: Grilled Pork Chops with Bacon Sauce

For many, Memorial Day is the official start of grilling season. Here's a great recipe to get you started:

Grilled Pork Chops with Bacon Sauce

1 cup Baconnaise®
2 tbsp lime juice
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground chipotle pepper
8 pork chops, about 1/2" thick
2 tbsp chopped cilantro (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, then cover the pork chops in about 1/2 of the mixture. Let the pork chops sit in the mixture at room temperature for approximately 1/2 hour. Prepare a very hot grill, and grill the pork chops until they reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees F (70 degrees C), basting frequently with about 1/2 of the remaining sauce. Serve the pork chops with the rest of the sauce.

Baconnaise Recipe: Tex-Mex Corn Salad with Baconnaise

This was posted recently by Heather Marks on Cleveland's Fox 8 website:

Tex-Mex Corn Salad

Cook 1 small bag of corn kernels (1 and a half to 2 cups). Add one fourth cup Baconnaise, one fourth cup diced cherry tomatoes, 2 teaspoons Lime juice, 2 teaspoons of Chili Powder (medium heat), and 2 Tablespoons grated or shredded Parmesan, Romano or Asiago cheese. Mix and serve chilled. You can also do a variation with corn on the cob. Just put out small bowls of the Baconnaise, grated parmesan and chile powder with a small spoon, and lime wedges. People can slather the Baconnaise and sprinkle the other ingredients directly on the cob.

Baconnaise Recipe: Baconnaise and Tomato Biscuit Appetizers

Baconnaise and tomatoes, this is verging on an obsession in our office. The flavors go so well together that we tried this recipe out as an appetizer with great success the other night.

Baconnaise and Tomato Cup Appetizers

• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 3 ounces shredded Swiss cheese
• 1/2 cup Baconnaise
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1 (16 ounce) can refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a muffin pan. Mix tomatoes, onions, Swiss cheese, basil and Baconnaise in a mixing bowl. Separate biscuit halves horizontally, and place each half into cups in the mini-muffin pan. Fill each biscuit with the Baconnaise mixture. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Inventory Update/Baconnaise Recipe - Guaca-Bacon-mole

Quick inventory update - we've temporarily run out of Cheddar & Jalapeno Bacon Salt as well as Bacon Flavored Sunflower Seeds. We should have more middle to end of next week. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Today we met with one of our best partners. They mentioned that they loved Baconnaise on turkey burgers, but that the real hit for them recently was mixing Baconnaise with avocados for a delicious "Guaca-Bacon-mole." Here's the recipe (which we took a couple of liberties with):

Guaca-Bacon-Mole
4 ripe avocados (Hass are great), chilled
4 tablespoons Baconnaise
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp black pepper
Red chili, chopped (optional)

Mash the guacamole with a potato masher, but be sure to leave some chunks in there. Add the remaining ingredients. Serve with your favorite tortilla chips.