Bacon, Cottage Bacon, Canadian Bacon: What's the Difference? - Chico Locker & Sausage Co. Inc.Chico Locker & Sausage Co. Inc.

So we all know that bacon makes everything better…. And if you don’t, we’ll, you’re missing out on life. If you’re anything of a bacon lover I’m sure you have heard of cottage bacon and Canadian bacon. So what’s the difference!? Well I’m here to tell you.

Fun Meat Fact #1: Bacon comes from the belly of a hog. The spare ribs are pulled (scooped off) and what is left is a fresh belly which is then cured, smoked, and sliced for bacon. The photo above shows a pork belly that has been cured and smoked. Bacon! For more detailed information check out our pork cutting post! here.

There it is how you usually see it, all packaged up and ready for the frying pan.

Fun Meat Fact #2 Cottage bacon comes off the shoulder of the hog. If you refer to the pork cutting post, we use the Boston butt to make our cottage bacon. It is boned out, the cap of fat taken off, cured, pressed, and sliced. Cottage bacon tends to be more lean so it fries up more like ham than it does bacon. But you still get that same great bacon flavor. 🙂

Here’s the cottage bacon all sliced up. Notice the difference between this and the regular bacon!? Much leaner. More meat than fat essentially. But the curing process is still the same.

Fun Meat Fact #3 Canadian bacon comes from a pork loin that has been cured, smoked, and sliced. It is the typical bacon used in eggs Benedict or something of that nature. It’s probably the bacon least common due to the fact that people like their pork loins. And if you’ve got one hog, you sacrifice your pork chops for bacon. It is also much leaner than typical bacon. Frying up like ham much just the cottage bacon.