Turkey bacon substitutes

The nearest like-for-like products. Chicken bacon behaves almost identically to turkey bacon, similarly lean and similarly floppy unless you cook it hard. Beef bacon is the better eating choice: it actually renders fat, crisps properly, and tastes richer and beefier with a distinct steak-like edge rather than turkey's slightly sweet, hammy note.

Best for

Breakfast strips, BLTs, Burgers, Wrapping, Salads

Beef bacon is meatier and shrinks more, so buy about 20 percent more by weight than you would turkey bacon. Both are usually pork-free, which is often the reason turkey bacon was chosen.

The pantry version and better than it sounds. Lay thin slices in a hot dry nonstick pan or on a sheet pan at 375F until the edges curl and brown, about 8 minutes, and they crisp into salty smoky shards. Less sweet than turkey bacon, which is typically sugar-cured, and thinner and shatterier rather than chewy, so it is excellent crumbled over a salad or soup and less convincing as a whole strip.

Best for

Crumbled toppings, Salads, Baked potatoes, Sandwiches, Soup garnish

Brush very lightly with oil and add a pinch of brown sugar if you want it to taste closer to cured bacon. No fat renders out, so oil the pan.

The only swap that reliably works when a recipe depends on drippings, because pork fat is the functional ingredient. Pork bacon is fattier, saltier, smokier and much more deeply savory than turkey bacon, so a dish will taste richer and read as a bigger indulgence. Pancetta is unsmoked, so it gives you the fat and the savory pork depth without the campfire note, which suits pasta and braises better.

Best for

Any recipe needing bacon fat, Carbonara, Braised greens, Cornbread, Vinaigrettes, Clam chowder

Four strips of pork bacon yield roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons of fat. If you are avoiding pork for dietary or religious reasons, use the oil-plus-smoked-paprika route below instead.

Not a strip substitute at all, but the correct answer when the recipe only wanted bacon fat. Smoked paprika supplies the smoke, soy sauce supplies the cured savory depth, and the oil supplies the fat. Greens or beans built this way taste convincingly smoky and savory but noticeably cleaner and less meaty, without the mouthcoating quality real bacon fat gives.

Best for

Collard greens, Beans and lentils, Chowder, Vinaigrette, Vegetarian versions of bacon dishes

A few drops of liquid smoke work too, but it is easy to overdo; start with two drops per tablespoon of oil. Add soy sauce off the heat so it does not burn.

Sensible when the bacon was going to be chopped anyway. Browned turkey sausage brings its own herb seasoning, usually sage and pepper, so a quiche or breakfast casserole tastes herbier and more savory rather than smoky and sweet. It renders a little more fat than turkey bacon, though still not much.

Best for

Breakfast casseroles, Quiche, Pasta sauces, Stuffing

Add a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika if you want the smoke back. Break it up small so it distributes like bacon bits rather than sitting in lumps.

Both aim at the same target turkey bacon does: smoky, salty, crisp, no pork. Coconut flakes tossed with soy sauce, maple syrup and smoked paprika and baked 12 minutes at 325F are genuinely good as a crumble, though faintly sweet and coconutty. Marinated tempeh strips are chewier and nuttier and hold up as actual strips in a sandwich, but they taste distinctly of tempeh underneath the marinade.

Best for

Salads, BLT-style sandwiches, Baked potato toppings, Vegan breakfast plates

Watch coconut bacon closely; it goes from golden to burnt in about a minute. Both need oil in the pan since neither renders any fat.