Bacon Pie – YUM
I made this bacon pie a couple years ago and it was a hit… not that I was surprised of course. It had plenty of bacon in it. I’m about to make it again and this time I’ll add a couple ingredients that will spice it up a bit. I expect it will disappear just as quickly as the first iteration so this time I’m taking a couple pieces for myself before the rest of the gang gets hold of it.
The recipe is simple enough:
2 pounds of bacon
2 packages of hash brown potatoes
1 large package of cheese
Really… what else is necessary?
Start by laying the bacon in a weave pattern on the bottom of a 12 inch baking dish. You can use the overlay pattern but that’s really a lot of work and in the end doesn’t really make any difference.
Next up is the hash brown layer. Make sure the potatoes are cooked first. You can brown them if you like. Add the cheese to the potatoes and mix them together. This time I’m adding some crunch by way of panko bread. I’m also adding a little heat in the form of black pepper and just a little red pepper flake.
The last step is to repeat the first step. Put the second pound of bacon criss-crossed on the top of the potatoes. Make sure to extend to the edges of the dish (not as I did in this photo – it should go out further and up the edges). You might want to use the overlap method on the top layer as it does show up in the final. But not for long as everyone digs in and cuts it apart pretty fast.
Then you need to cook it. Put in the oven at 350 degrees and on top of a cookie tray to catch the bacon grease. The grease didn’t actually spill over the top when I cooked it but I did take the dish out of the over several times and poured the bacon fat out because the whole thing was swimming in the fat. The cookie tray caught the drippings that were left on the sides.
I’m not sure how long it takes to cook but I do recall it took a lot longer than I expected. So leave about 2 hours to make sure everything is really cooked. The bacon on the top should be crisp when it’s done.
Drain off the remaining bacon fat, let it cool a bit, then cut it into pieces. That’s about all there is. Your friends will love you for your efforts.
