Bacon jam

Bacon jam

Course	Condiment
Main ingredients	Bacon
Media: Bacon jam

Bacon jam is a bacon-based relish made from cooked, drained chopped bacon which is slow cooked with onions, vinegar, and brown sugar. Part of bacon mania,¹ it was invented as condiment for hamburgers in 2007, and is now served on many other foods, including as a spread for bread or toast.

Many spiced and flavored variations are now available.²

Josh Henderson of Skillet Street Foods in Seattle created bacon jam for his food trucks³ and has been selling it since at least 2007.⁴⁵⁶⁷ His recipe was inspired by the garnish for the hamburgers at Sang Yoon's gastropub Father's Office, which includes caramelized onions and "bacon compote";⁸ Henderson says he spent four years refining his bacon jam recipe, emphasizing the pork flavors over the onion. He serves it as a "special sauce" on the hamburgers on his food trucks.³ Henderson also sold bacon jam in jars, and in 2008, it was sold through Martha Stewart's and Real Simple's holiday gift guides.⁷ Others have started producing it since.⁹¹⁰

In 2013, Bruce Kramer introduced the chef Michael Oraschewsky to bacon jam, and Oraschewsky started serving it at his restaurant.¹¹ They launched a campaign on Kickstarter to raise money for a business, The Bacon Jams, which produced and sold the product. In 2014, they were approached by QVC to sell it online. This required that they produce a shelf-stable version in quantity and have it approved by the USDA. They sold 60,000 jars of bacon jam in 6 minutes on QVC.¹² The company rebranded itself as TBJ Gourmet in 2016.¹³ By 2017, their product was sold in 1500 retail locations and nearly 1000 restaurants,¹⁴ and by 2022, it achieved mass distribution to the food industry through Sysco.¹⁵ By 2026, it was also distributed by US Foods and KeHE.¹⁶

National restaurant chains started offering bacon jam in the 2020s, often as limited-time promotions: Sonic and Red Robin in 2021;¹⁷¹⁸ Denny's in 2023 and 2024;¹⁹²⁰ Dairy Queen and Burger King in 2024;²¹²² Applebee's in 2025;²³ and Dunkin' Donuts in 2025.²⁴ By 2024, it was also sold in thousands of supermarkets.²⁵

Besides TBJ, many other brands now offer bacon jam, including Stonewall Kitchen.²⁶

Bacon jam is made by cooking chopped bacon, draining most of the grease, then slow cooking it with diced onions, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, salt, and black pepper.⁷ Garlic, maple syrup, and other vinegars are also common ingredients. Less frequently used ingredients include bourbon whiskey, brewed coffee, thyme, and salt.²⁷ Bacon jam is not a smooth jam, but has chunks of bacon and other ingredients in a sticky glaze;²⁸ some cooks make it smoother in a food processor.²⁹ Commercial bacon jam tends to be smoother than home-made.

The original Skillet Street version contains 36% protein and fat from bacon and 11% sugar.³⁰ Other commercially packaged products may contain trace-17% protein and fat from the bacon and 35–66% sugar.³¹ Recipes on the web have 4–6 times as much raw bacon by weight as sugar;²⁷ since cooked bacon is about 30% the weight of raw, bacon jam has about 1.2–1.8 times as much bacon as sugar.³²

Unlike fruit jams, the original bacon jam could not be stored at room temperature, or made shelf-stable by home canning, even if vinegar or sugar were added. It can be held in a refrigerator for 2-4 weeks, or frozen.³³ Foodborne illness from bacon jam has been traced to inadequate refrigeration.³⁴

Commercial bacon jam is formulated and processed to be shelf-stable until it is opened.³⁵

There are many spreadable pork products vaguely similar to bacon jam: Italian (Calabria) 'nduja, Austrian (Styria) verhackert, German mettwurst and teewurst. These are cured or raw products, not cooked like bacon jam. French (Touraine) rillettes are a shredded confit which can be made of pork and salt, but are not otherwise seasoned; Balzac once called them "brune confiture" 'brown jam'.³⁶ None of these products use crisped meat, none are sweetened, and none are used as condiments – rather, they are eaten as charcuterie with bread.