The Best Way To Cook Canadian Peameal Bacon For The Crispiest Edges

What most Americans know as Canadian bacon is known as back bacon in Canada. It comes from pork loin and is sold pre-cooked. While it looks an awful lot like deli ham, it's a completely different food. There is another type of bacon from the Great White North that is considered more of a national specialty, and it's called peameal bacon. It also comes from the loin but is often uncooked and coated in cornmeal (it was originally covered in ground dried peas, hence the name). But, unlike the crispy bacon slices that Americans are largely familiar with, peameal bacon doesn't naturally cook up crisp because it's a very lean cut of meat. To get crisp edges, you'll need to add some fat to your cooking method.

Peameal bacon slices may have a little fat clinging to the outside, along with that coating of cornmeal – these are what will get crisp when you fry them in fat. The center will remain relatively chewy and juicy. Just add some butter, oil, or bacon fat (you don't want to throw this liquid gold out) to a skillet and fry until the meat is cooked and the edges are browned and crisp, flipping the slices halfway through. Alternatively, you can cook peameal bacon in the air fryer until the edges are similarly crisped.

Once you've fried up your peameal bacon, you can largely treat it like American-style bacon, although the flavor is quite different because it isn't smoked. Still, you can serve it alongside eggs in the morning, on Eggs Benedict, or in a BLT sandwich (which I suppose would make it a "PBLT"). Around Toronto, where the bacon originated, a regional favorite is peameal bacon sandwiches. The handheld dish is composed of sliced fried peameal bacon slices and mustard on a soft sandwich bun.

Another element that makes peameal bacon unique is that you can purchase an entire loin and roast it. You can score it and glaze it if you'd like, and by the time the roast is done, the top should have a nice browned crust. Slice up the meat and enjoy it as a main meat course or use it in casseroles or sandwiches like croque monsieur or Cuban sandwiches. When you replace traditional "Canadian" bacon with peameal bacon on Hawaiian pizza, you'll get a little more texture due to the cornmeal edges on the latter, which should crisp up nicely in the heat of a hot pizza oven or grill.