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Substituting Bacon

If a recipe calls for salt pork or fatback, can you use bacon instead?

If a recipe calls for salt pork or fatback, can you use bacon instead?

While all three of these pork products are used to add flavor to soups, stews, and braises, they cannot be used interchangeably. Bacon and salt pork are both cured meat from the hog’s belly, but bacon is usually smoked and thus has a distinctive flavor. Salt pork is fattier than bacon and is usually removed from the pot before serving. Fat back, which (as you might have guessed) comes from the hog’s back, is raw fat that has not been salted, smoked, or cured, making it much more perishable than the other products.

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