Jowl Bacon Recipe - How to Make Smoked Pork Jowl Bacon | Hank Shaw (2024)

FAQs

How to use smoked hog jowl? ›

Serve the Sliced Jowls as-is or add it to another dish, such as pizza, salads or any dish you would add regular bacon to.

It's been fully smoked and cured and it's ready to be sliced and fried. You'll find Hog Jowl in all types of shapes and forms, large pieces and small, when you go to purchase it. It just depends on how it's been cut and prepared by the butcher.

Pork jowl is a cut of pork from a pig's cheek. Different food traditions have used it as a fresh cut or as a cured pork product (with smoke and/or curing salt). As a cured and smoked meat in America it is called jowl bacon or, especially in the Southern United States, hog jowl, joe bacon or joe meat.

Jowl is similar in composition to bacon—it has tender meat layered between white strips of fat that cook up nice and crispy on a skillet. But jowl is not as uniform as bacon. It has larger and fewer layers of fat and meat, unlike pork belly, which has thinner more numerous individual layers.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place the pork jowl slices on an oven-safe cooling rack with a baking sheet underneath. Cook pork jowl slices in the oven for 15 minutes until the jowl slices are golden brown. Remove cooked jowl slices from the oven, reserving any drippings in the baking sheet for later use.

Refrigerate meat and poultry within 2 hours of removing it from a smoker. Cut the meat or poultry into smaller portions or slices, place it in shallow containers, cover, and refrigerate. Use it within 4 days or freeze for later use.

Logistically, hog jowl the cheek of the hog. Typically a tough cut, it's often smoked and cured and can be used just like bacon or salt pork. Sometimes you can even find jowl bacon at the grocery store (buy it immediately if you do). The cut is known for its rich marbling and tender texture when cooked.

Flavor and Texture

Because pigs place minimal stress on the jowl muscle, the meat contains a smooth, silky texture and naturally sweeter flavor than most other cuts.

One thing is certain about ribs and pork: If you overcook them, they do become dry and tough.

However, when purchasing smoked pork chops from other sources, you cannot always assume they are pre-cooked. Some products might only be smoked for flavor without reaching the internal temperatures necessary to be considered fully cooked.

Are pork cheeks and jowls the same? ›

Not to be confused with the jowl, which is the surrounding area of the face and is more fat (albeit tasty fat) than meat. The cheeks are meaty little portions marbled with fat, which make them melt-in-the-mouth tender once slow cooked.

Guanciale Recipes

In terms of cooking with guanciale, also called pork cheek or jowl, has a lot of similarities to bacon, which means you can substitute it in many recipes that call for those ingredients; it's no surprise it surfaces a lot in pasta dishes.

A whole hog will yield about 16 lbs of bacon. You can slice it and fry it fresh as a pork belly or you can have it smoked and cured to make bacon. Shoulder: A whole hog will yield 2 Boston butt roast and 2 picnic roasts from the shoulders.

Why Was Guanciale Banned? Since the 1970s, there was a ban on cured pork products from Europe driven by a fear of livestock illnesses. The ban was lifted for Italian producers that were able to pay for a certification that cost up to $100,000.

Jowl bacon is the fattiest of the bacons and has a rich, almost smoky/sweet flavor different than traditional (from the pork belly). While they can be enjoyed cooked up as is like the other bacons, I personally love using jowl bacon as I would bacon ends, and cook with it.

Because pork jowl is a natural bacon substitute, try frying it up and swapping out the bacon for a buttery carbonara breakfast sandwich, or incorporating it into a classic American breakfast spread of hash and fried eggs.