Are you craving delicious vegan bacon bits to top baked potatoes and salads or to sprinkle on your favorite vegan pizza? These sweet, savory, and crunchy vegan bacon bits recipe checks all the boxes!
I’ve been vegan for almost 20 years, and although I never liked eating bacon, even before becoming vegan, nothing smells better than savory, sweet tempeh bacon; instead of making my favorite vegan BLT sandwich or eating tempeh bacon with my tofu scramble, I decided to make a vegan bacon bit recipe with tempeh bacon.
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You will be pleasantly surprised if you’re skeptical about tempeh or vegan bacon bits. Tempeh bacon doesn’t taste like bacon; it tastes smoky, savory, and full of umami flavor. And who doesn’t like that? Believe it or not, real bacon bits don’t contain real bacon. Bacos, a popular brand of bacon bits, is vegan. But Bacos aren’t healthy by any means.
Ingredients in Bacos Bacon Bits
Although vegan, Bacos contain many unsavory ingredients, despite being vegan.
- Defatted Soy Flour
- Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil (Adds a Trivial Amount of Saturated Fat)
- Salt
- Water
- Sugar
- Natural and Artificial Flavor
- Caramel Color and Red 40, Tocopherol (Preservative).
Vegan or not, I’m not fond of eating ingredients I can’t identify! So, let’s make a healthy vegan bacon bits recipe!
Vegan Bacon Bits Ingredients
- Tempeh: I like using Lifelight brand tempeh.
- Soy Sauce: Soy sauce gives the marinade an umami flavor.
- Maple Syrup: Maple syrup gives the marinade a sweet and bacony flavor.
- Sriracha: A little Sriracha enhances the flavors of the tempeh bacon.
- Liquid Smoke: I used hickory flavor liquid smoke, but there are other flavors available.
- Black Pepper: I prefer using fresh black pepper.
Vegan Bacon Bits Ingredient Substitutions
- Instead of tempeh, you can make vegan bacon from coconut, tofu, soy paper, carrots, and eggplant.
- Tamari and liquid aminos are gluten-free options for soy sauce.
- Date syrup or agave provides
- Agave or date syrup has a similar sweetness to the marinade.
- Choose any hot sauce you enjoy!
- Try a flavor liquid smoke, or substitute smoked paprika.
How to Make Vegan Bacon Bits
- One of the first mistakes people make when cooking tempeh is that they must boil it first! Yes, boil it!
- First, remove the tempeh from the package and cut it in half, making two equal-sized squares.
- Then, place the tempeh pieces in a pan and cover them with water. Bring to a boil, and cook for 15-20 minutes.
- Remove the tempeh from the boiling water to cut into thin slices, like bacon, and marinate.
Why Boil Tempeh?
- Boiling removes the bitter taste from the tempeh.
- It softens the tempeh to make it easier to eat and enjoy.
- And boiling allows for better saturation of marinate.
- Once the tempeh is cut into thin strips, place it in the tempeh bacon marinade.
- Marinating the tempeh overnight is recommended for the best flavor.
- Add the marinade ingredients to the base of a refrigerator-safe container.
- Cover the container and lightly shake the container, covering all the tempeh strips with fluid.
- Place the container in the refrigerator overnight.
- Throughout the day/evening, rotate the container in the refrigerator. I flip the container over often whenever I go into the refrigerator.
- Most of the marinade will be absorbed into the tempeh.
How to Make Vegan Bacon Bits
For crispy tempeh bacon, I prefer the air fryer. But the oven or a skillet offers other options.
Air Fryer Cooking
- Preheat the air fryer to 370 degrees.
- Spray water in the base of the air fryer.
- Add the marinated strips of tempeh and reserve extra marinade.
- Cook in batches in a single layer at 370 degrees for 7 minutes; flipping each strip after 3 minutes.
- Return cooked pieces into the container with the extra marinade.
- Repeat until all the pieces are cooked.
Oven
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
- Place the tempeh bacon strips in a single layer, leaving a little space between each strip.
- Cook at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes until tempeh is browned.
- Now, return the cooked tempeh to the container with the extra marinade.
Skillet
- In a large skillet, heat the pan to medium-low.
- Place the tempeh strips in the pan, not overlapping each other.
- As the bacon is cooked, flip the pieces over every 5-7 minutes, adding small amounts of the marinade into the pan as the bacon cooks and browns, until all the marinade is absorbed.
Crumbling the Bacon Bits
- Once the tempeh bacon is cooked, allow it to cool completely.
- Add the tempeh bacon to a food processor. I used my mini food processor, but you can also use a large food processor.
- If you don’t have a food processor, chop the tempeh into bacon bits.
- Tempeh that has been cooked can be kept in the fridge for up to seven days as long as it is stored properly in an airtight container or securely sealed with plastic wrap.
Serving Suggestions
I love vegan bacon bits on EVERYTHING!
- Baked potatoes with vegan sour cream and green onions.
- Try vegan bacon bits as a crunchy salad topping.
- Add vegan bacon bits instead of large pieces of tempeh bacon in a BLT pasta salad.
- Sprinkle on vegan pizza.
- Include in tofu scramble as an ingredient or topping.
- Crumble into casseroles, rice dishes, or mashed potatoes.
The possibilities are endless, and vegan bacon bits add protein to your favorite recipes!
Recipe FAQs
Many brands of bacon bits are vegan because the main ingredient is textured vegetable protein (soy protein), typically soy flour produced from ground soybeans. Brands choose soy flour because it is generally cheaper than bacon and has a much longer shelf life.
While imitation bacon bits are made with soy and are usually safe for vegans, other varieties may contain bacon. It’s also worth noting that some of the types made of soy also include honey and natural meat flavoring that make them non-vegan.
Since mushrooms work like a sponge to soak up flavor, they will be saturated with a delicious smoky bacon taste in this shiitake bacon recipe thanks to tamari, sesame oil, liquid smoke, salt, and pepper.
Tips
- Boiling the tempeh pieces before cutting and marinating them ensures the marinade flavors will absorb into the tempeh.
- Marinate overnight for the best results; the longer, the deeper the flavors.
- Turn the covered container over throughout the marinating process to soak up the majority of the marinade.
- The more marinade the tempeh absorbs, the deeper the flavors.
Add savory, sweet, crunchy vegan bacon bits to your favorite foods. You will love this satisfying crunchy goodness.
Tasty Vegan Recipes to Try!
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Bacon Bits
Are you craving delicious vegan bacon bits to top baked potatoes and salads or to sprinkle on your favorite vegan pizza? These sweet, savory, and crunchy vegan bacon bits recipe checks all the boxes!
Instructions
Bake, air-fry, or cook the tempeh in a skillet according to the directions.
Once the tempeh cools completely, transfer it to a food processor.
Pulse until the tempeh bacon is broken into bits.
Transfer to a refrigerator-safe sealed container.
The vegan bacon bits will last 7 days in the refrigerator.
Notes
- Boiling the tempeh pieces before cutting and marinating them ensures the marinade flavors will absorb into the tempeh.
- Marinate overnight for the best results; the longer, the deeper the flavors.
- Turn the covered container over throughout the marinating process to soak up the majority of the marinade.
- The more marinade the tempeh absorbs, the deeper the flavors.
Nutrition
Calories: 10kcalCarbohydrates: 2gFat: 1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gSodium: 150mgPotassium: 268mgFiber: 0.2gSugar: 1gVitamin A: 4IUCalcium: 42mgIron: 2mg
Hi! My name is Kathy, I am a retired high school English teacher & vegan enthusiast and blogger. My entire blog is fully plant-based vegan. I truly believe what we eat & how we live determines our health & the preservation of our planet! 🙂
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