Turn Your Carrots Into The Crispiest Vegan Bacon

One of the most common questions vegans and vegetarians are asked is "Don't you miss bacon?" Cue the eye roll. Sure, some of us who have cut out meat may crave something salty and crispy at brunch, but bacon is not necessary for that. Nowadays, soy, seitan, or veggie bacon can be purchased from the store. Or, you can do like vegan queen and actress Tabitha Brown does and make crispy vegan bacon from carrots. 

In a TikTok video, Brown demonstrates the first step: Slice a washed and dried carrot lengthwise with a peeler. This will result in long, thin strips. The next step is to gather up ingredients for the marinade — liquid smoke, maple syrup, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and onion powder. Mix everything together, then add in your carrot strips and let them soak for two minutes. Put the strips in the air fryer at 380 degrees for five minutes. 

In a total of 10 minutes, you can have a crispy, veggie-forward bacon to snack on or serve alongside breakfast. Let's be clear: Although this recipe is delicious, carrots are not meat and have no fat, so you won't be getting the richness found in animal-based bacon. However if you are watching your calorie intake, there are some serious pros to using carrots. An entire large carrot only has around 29 calories, while the average serving of two slices of bacon has nearly three times that at an estimated 86 calories or more, depending on your source. Plus, one carrot provides an estimated 7% of your daily recommended intake of fiber. 

While Tabitha Brown's carrot bacon recipe is relatively simple, there are quite a few ways you can modify the flavor and texture of the dish. First, there are some things you might not have on hand. Liquid smoke gives the vegetable-based bacon its much-needed smoky, umami component, but it's not a kitchen staple for most of us. Thankfully, it's easy to find in many grocery stores and online. To replace the liquid smoke, you can increase the amount of smoked paprika or add a similarly smoky chipotle powder to the marinade. 

In Brown's TikTok, salt is also noticeably missing. Yet saltiness is one of the components that many say make bacon great, so you may wish to use soy sauce. Depending on your desired salt level, add between 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons of soy sauce to the marinade per carrot. Or, add smoked sea salt for a touch of extra flavor, especially if you don't have liquid smoke. Miso paste can also be used for the salty and umami components. 

Finally, you may wish to adjust marinating time. Brown only marinates the carrot slices for two minutes, but this may not give the carrots enough time to soak up flavor. For super flavorful carrot bacon, try marinating the veggies overnight or at least for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, air fryers are amazing for making food like bacon crispy without much oil, but if you don't have one, Brown says you can also use an oven. If you're going that route, bake the bacon at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes, flipping halfway.