Crazy Delicious Homemade Bacon Jalapeno Jam - SO EASY!

May 19

Written By Logan's Inner Chef

Ingredients:

12 oz hickory smoked bacon

6 jalapeños

1 red bell pepper

1 Granny Smith apple

400 g granulated sugar (just shy of 2 cups)

250 ml vinegar

1 tsp black pepper

Tools needed:

Cutting board

Sharp knife

Small stock pot

Wide mouth mason jars with lids for storage

Measuring cups

How to make it:

You can pulse the apples and peppers in a food processor to break into small pieces if you like. I prefer to cut everything with a knife for more formal, uniform pieces.

Wash and dry the apple/peppers. Cut tops of the peppers and cut in half lengthwise. Remove seeds and placenta. I cut the peppers into small brunoise, which is a smaller dice around 1/4 inch. Cut the apple into similar size pieces, keeping the skin on.

I place the bacon in the freezer for 30 minutes before cutting. Same as the apple and peppers, I cut the bacon into smaller dice. I shoot for everything being the same size.

Place bacon in cold stock pot with 1 tsp ground black pepper. Turn on heat to medium. Render the bacon and crisp. This takes around 6 minutes to cook the bacon, stirring occasionally. Once bacon is crisp, spoon the bacon out of the pot and place on paper towel to drain and cool. Pour all but 1 tsp rendered fat from the pot saving the rest for other purposes.

From here, add the peppers, apple, vinegar and sugar to the stock pot. Stir in the sugar to dissolve. You can add the bacon back to the pot now if you like, or add it once the jam gets cooked. Turn the cooking temperature up to medium high heat and bring the liquid up to a boil. As this comes up to a boil, stir the ingredients occasionally. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes to reduce the liquid. The consistency that you are looking for is syrup like. The apple should have enough natural pectin to thicken the jam as well as the sugar cooking to a syrup. Once thickened slightly, add the bacon if you didn’t add it earlier. This will thicken up more as it cools all of the way down. Turn off heat and let cool to room temperature for about 1 hour.

Once cooled, store in wide mouth mason jars and place in the refrigerator. If the jam is still too thin, you can heat it back up in the stock pot and simmer it more to reduce. This will keep in the refrigerator for around 1 month if you don’t use it all by then! I made a grilled cheese with avocado and topped it all with this jam that was awesome.