Bacon Salt Recipe and a King Oyster Mushroom Bacon experiment
2013
This bacon salt recipe is a healthy version of this new popular seasoning salt. When I heard of bacon salt I thought not a bad idea. It’s a great flavorful way to get a smoky salty taste without needing to eat meat, or extra fat. However, the bacon salt commercially made I found out is loaded with artificial flavors, colors and chemicals most of us really do not want to eat. This motivated me to create a more healthy version, knowing that this crazy long list of seriously harmful ingredients to make this seasoning is really unnecessary.
The ingredient list is hidden from the website for the Orignal J & D’s Bacon Salt, no wonder. Check out what’s in it!
Sea salt, dehydrated garlic, paprika, dehydrated onion, corn syrup, bleached enriched flour, monosodium glutamate, spice, corn cereal, maltodextrin, wheat fiber, shortening (includes partially hydrogenated cottonseed and palm oils), natural hickory smoke flavor, silicon dioxide, natural and artificial flavors (contains milk), hydrolized vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast extract, modified food starch, caramel color, smoke flavor, Yellow 6, Red 40, disodium-guanylate, disodium inosinate, ethyl alcohol. Contains wheat soy and milk ingredients.
Yikes!
But the concept of bacon salt is awesome in that it is smoky, salty and flavorful without the fat, or the animal. It can be sprinkled on lots of different dishes and veggies to spice and flavor them up. So I set to work to make a healthy alternative. Well, healthy in comparison!
Then I decided to try making bacon with it. This needs some more work, but I will post my results and the recipe testing. I love king oyster mushrooms but they are not so common to find where I am living. So I came across some and just had to try making a vegan alternative bacon with them as I know these mushrooms are great dehydrated.
The bacon needs a little tweaking and I will post how I would test it next time. If any of you are vegan, or looking for a more healthy version, and looking for a bacon substitute I can give you a good lead into a great way to do it. Dehydrated mushrooms have a great texture. They are not as crispy as bacon will turn out, they have a little more of a chewy texture. But you may find also that you love it.
But first the bacon salt recipe! This bacon salt seasoning is awesome!
Bacon Salt Recipe
Ingredients
1 Tbsp Smoked Salt
1 Tbsp Coconut Sugar
2 tsp Smoked Paprika
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Onion Powder
½ tsp Mustard
½ tsp Black Pepper
Directions
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, or grind together in a blender, and store in an air tight container.
King Oyster Mushroom Bacon Recipe
Test recipe – see alternative recipe to test below
Ingredients
3 King Oyster Mushrooms
1 ½ Tbsps Bacon Salt (half of the recipe)
½ cup Olive Oil
Mix ¼ cup of the oil and the bacon salt together. Stir with a spoon and then let sit while you prepare mushrooms to give time for the salt and spices to dissolve into the oil. Cut top head and bottom hard pointed part of king oyster mushrooms and then slice into ‘bacon’ slices approximately a half centimeter, or quarter inch, thick. Dip both sides of the mushroom ‘bacon’ slices in the spice and oil mixture and then lay out on a teflex sheet. Continue with the rest of the mushroom slices. After the oil gets soaked up by the mushroom slices part way through dipping them in, add 2 more tablespoons oil and mix together. If the oil runs out again add another 2 tablespoons oil and continue.
When all the mushroom slices have been dipped and coated with the oil spice mixture, dehydrate for 3 hours. Remove from tray and transfer to a plate. Blot on paper towel first if desired to remove excess oil. Serve and enjoy!
Results of testing
The bacon has a lot of potential. It had the great smoky flavorful quality. It wasn’t crispy, but I’m ok with that. You have to go into this recipe knowing you are getting a different texture. The texture is quite awesome, but is not going to resemble exactly real bacon. The taste should. However in this recipe there is too much f the seasoning in the recipe and it tastes too strong, using less of the bacon salt will help this. Bacon by nature is greasy, but this is too greasy for me as well. At least it’s olive oil.. cutting the olive oil with lemon juice should make better marinade and base for the seasoning. Here is how I would re-test this:
For the next testing I would try this:
3 King Oyster Mushrooms
4 tsps Bacon Salt recipe
¼ cup Olive Oil
¼ cup Lemon juice
Blend the olive oil, lemon juice and bacon salt in a blender. Like above start with a quarter cup and dip the bacon slices into this mixture to cover each side and lay on teflex. Continue and dehydrate as in above directions.
If anyone tries this, please let me know how it goes. I think it will work great. It could be the best alternative bacon recipe going. 
Photo Description of Bacon experiment
Assemble ingredients
Mix oil and bacon salt ingredients. Next time I would grind the bacon salt together first. This can be easily done in a Vita-mix.
Slice top and tail of king oyster mushrooms and then cut them into slices.
Lay out on teflex.
After dehydrating 3 hours it looks like this.
I blotted the oil by setting on a paper towel first and then laid them out on a plate. Once I come across more king oyster mushrooms I will have to test this one again, as I think it has serious potential!
If you experiment with this bacon recipe, I’d love to hear your results!
