Pork shoulder has more fat content than pork belly, but it has the right amount of meat to be a valid alternative. It appears as a tough and fatty cut of pork meat, but when slow-cooked it actually becomes tender and juicy to the point where you can easily break it apart. For time-saving reasons, you may want to buy the boneless version. The pork shoulder is sold both bone and boneless. Pork shoulder isn’t as easy to find as other pork meat cuts and it’s not very popular as a pork belly substitute, but if you can purchase it, it does make a valid and rather inexpensive alternative. Pork shoulder is also known as pork butt, despite being located on the shoulder of the pig. To make fatback pork more delicious, add a lot of salt and grill it with some vegetables, or add spices to enhance the flavor. It is also used to prepare salt pork in the same way you would use pork belly, seasonings included.įatback, as the name suggests, will have a lot more fat than meat, so it’s not recommended for people who prefer the flavor of the meat over fat. As a result, lard resembles smooth butter, while fatback is hard and fibrous.įatback is extremely tasty when cooked and can work very well as a pork belly substitute. In fact, lard is rendered fatback, which means fatback that has been melted and strained before being left to solidify again. – Adding moisture and flavor to ground meat preparations, such as sausagesįatback and lard come from the same part of the pig, but are not quite the same thing and shouldn’t be confused. – Being used as a cooking medium or alternative to sautéing (lard) – Being used as an ingredient in mortadella and cured salami Fatback meatįatback is the slab of hard fat that is found on the backbone of the pig. On top of that, being a leaner kind of meat, it is ideal if you’re trying to cut down on fats but you can’t renounce the pleasures of bacon! 3. For a richer flavor, it is recommended to buy beef meat from grass-fed cows.īeef bacon can be cooked in all the ways you would cook pork belly. If you’re unsure about the outcome or you feel like it tastes too different from pork belly, you can easily fix the flavor by adding pork seasonings. Beef fat also has a higher melting point, so you won’t get the same crisp you’d get with pork fat.ĭespite these differences, beef bacon is considered one of the best pork belly substitutes because it is very versatile and its taste is so similar to pork that it’s hard to notice the difference. Beef baconĪs pork bacon comes from the belly of the pig, beef bacon comes from the belly of the cow.īeef meat is leaner than pork meat, which is why beef bacon lacks the amount of juicy fat that pork bacon has and may feel drier in comparison. As for other seasonings, you can use whatever you would use for pork belly. The only thing you need to be careful about is the quantity of salt you will use to season pork bacon because bacon is saltier than an unprocessed pork belly. You can cook pork bacon in all the ways you would cook pork belly and you can use the same quantity as well. You can swap them with little to no difference in the final result. Pork bacon is the best substitute for pork belly. Also, bacon usually undergoes additional processing while the pork belly is uncured. The difference is that pork belly is the whole slab cut from the fleshy part of the pig’s belly, while pork bacon is just a cut from this slab.īacon can also come from other parts of the pig, or even from a different animal entirely (in that case, of course, it’s not called pork bacon, but beef bacon, turkey bacon, etc). Pork bacon comes from the belly of the pork, but it’s not considered pork belly just as pork belly is not considered bacon. In fact, given that pork belly can fit a large variety of recipes, it is important to choose the right substitute starting from the recipe you have at hand. Pork belly is sold in slabs or strips, which fulfill different purposes. Since pork belly comes from the belly of the pig, it is naturally rich in fats which give it the signature intense flavor, and that’s why pork belly is usually slow-cooked in order to render the meat tender and moist. You can tell if the meat is fresh from how the fat looks: a fresh pork belly should have a creamy white fat, if it’s too yellow or grey the meat is probably not as fresh as it may seem. Good pork belly should have a balanced ratio of meat and fat. These characteristics, together with how incredibly cheap pork is in comparison with other types of meat, made it very popular around the world. Pork belly is a cut of pork meat that is incredibly versatile and tasty because it’s a perfect union of crunchy skin and tender meat. What cut of pork is closest to pork belly?.
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