Learning how to cure bacon sounds like a project for smokehouses and stone cellars, and turns out to need nothing more than salt, a fridge and about a week of patience. Curing is the oldest way we know of preserving meat, and bacon is the friendliest place to start. This guide explains what curing actually is, how a dry cure differs from a brine, the honest truth about the nitrites in a bacon cure, a step-by-step method, and what can go wrong. If you would rather skip the guesswork, a good kit measures the tricky part for you.
What does it mean to cure bacon?
Curing is preservation by salt. Long before fridges, it was how people kept meat edible through a winter, and the science is simple. Salt draws water out of the meat by osmosis, and it is that water, not the meat itself, that bacteria need in order to spoil it. Take enough moisture away, season as you go, and fresh pork becomes something firmer that keeps far longer and tastes emphatically of bacon.
So is bacon cured? Yes, always. That is what makes it bacon rather than a plain pork chop; rub the right cure into a slab of pork belly, give it time, and the same joint becomes streaky bacon. The word covers a family of methods, from the industrial brines injected into supermarket rashers to the slow dry cures of artisan producers, but the principle is identical: salt out, moisture gone.
The cut decides the style. Pork belly, thinner and streaked with fat, gives you streaky bacon; pork loin with the skin removed gives you back bacon. Both take the same cure. Belly is the easier first attempt at curing bacon, because it is thinner and so cures faster and more reliably, but you can make back bacon once you have the method under your belt.
What is the difference between a dry cure and a wet cure?
There are two traditional routes to home cured bacon.
A wet cure, or brine cure, submerges the pork in salted water, often with sugar and spices dissolved in it, while the salt works inward over days. It is essentially what large producers do, except they speed things along by injecting the brine and pumping the meat full of water. That is why so much shop bacon leaks, spits and shrinks in the pan: you paid for pork, and a good deal of what you carried home was water.
A dry cure takes a different path. You rub a measured mix of salt and sugar onto the pork, then leave it in the fridge. The cure pulls moisture from the meat, dissolves into the brine it creates and draws back in carrying its seasoning, and afterwards the joint air dries. The result is firmer, more concentrated in flavour and far better behaved in the pan, because it never held all that water.
For homemade bacon, a dry cure is the method we would steer you towards every time. It uses no special equipment, it is easier to control, and it is the approach behind our Bacon Making Kit, which measures the cure so you are not guessing.
Do I really need curing salt and nitrites?
Every first-time curer asks this, and it deserves a straight answer. A proper bacon cure is not just table salt. It is a blend of salt and sugar with a small, carefully measured amount of curing salt, the nitrites and nitrates listed as sodium nitrite (E250) and sodium nitrate (E251). You may have heard curing salt sold as Prague powder; it is the same idea, ordinary salt with those curing compounds mixed in at a safe, controlled level.
The nitrites do a job plain salt cannot. They protect the meat as it cures, guarding against the bacteria and toxins that can grow in preserved meat, including the one responsible for botulism, and they give cured bacon its pink colour and distinctive taste. That is why every traditional bacon cure includes a curing salt.
We will be honest, because it matters. In an ideal world we would leave the nitrites out. But this is the easiest and safest way to cure bacon at home, and the nitrites are what protect the meat while it cures, so we would never tell you to omit them. Follow the quantities and never reduce them. Meat with no cure at all is a different craft: our jerky and biltong recipes use no cure whatsoever, just seasonings and your own beef, because those meats are preserved by drying rather than curing.
How do you cure bacon at home, step by step?
The whole process takes about a week, almost all of it the fridge doing the work. No smoker, no shed, no special kit.
- Choose your pork. Start with one whole, fresh joint of good pork belly for streaky bacon, skin removed. Belly is the reliable first choice because it is thin enough to cure evenly.
- Mix in your flavour. A dry cure carries seasoning as well as salt. Pick one flavour per batch rather than muddling several.
- Rub the cure in. Coat the pork evenly on all sides, working the cure into the surface so no part is left bare. Even coverage gives evenly cured bacon rather than salty patches.
- Refrigerate and wait. Seal the pork and leave it in the fridge for the time your recipe gives, turning it now and then. This is where the salt draws out moisture and preserves the meat. Thicker joints need longer, which is why a thinner belly is more forgiving.
- Rinse and pat dry. When the curing time is up, rinse off the excess cure and pat the meat dry. Do not skip this: rinsing is your main control over how salty the finished bacon tastes.
- Air dry in the fridge. Hang the joint to air dry for a few days, which firms the texture and concentrates the flavour. A useful trick is to hang it from the top shelf so it dangles into the space by the door where tall bottles usually go, the one spot with room to spare.
- Slice, cook and enjoy. Once dried, the joint is much firmer than raw belly and a sharp knife slices it cleanly. Because it is dry cured, it crisps up beautifully instead of leaking water and shrinking. Always cook home cured bacon through before eating.
The measured cure is the part that catches people out, and the part a kit quietly solves. Our Bacon Making Kit hands you the cure blended to the right strength, three flavours to choose from (chilli and garlic, juniper and fennel, or pancetta), and a booklet with the exact timings.
What can go wrong, and how do you fix it?
Home curing is hard to get badly wrong, but a few first-batch wobbles come up often enough to name.
- Too salty. The commonest, and the easiest to fix. Rinse more thoroughly after curing, and soak the bacon in cold water for an hour to draw out excess salt before drying. Next time, do not exceed the curing time.
- Wet or not firm. It needs longer. Give it more time curing and air drying, and check the cure was rubbed in evenly.
- Reducing the cure. Tempting if you are wary of salt or nitrites, but do not. The cure is what preserves the meat, and cutting it short is the one shortcut that is genuinely unsafe.
- Guessing the quantities. Measuring by eye is how batches turn out too salty or under-preserved, the real argument for a pre-measured cure.
Beyond that, the rules for safe home cured bacon are short: use fresh pork, follow the cure quantities and timings, keep the meat refrigerated throughout, and always cook it through before eating. Follow those and curing your own bacon is as safe as it is satisfying.
Curing bacon FAQs
Is bacon always cured?
Yes. Curing is what turns pork belly or loin into bacon, whether by a dry cure rubbed on or a wet brine. Uncured pork is just pork; the salt cure is what makes it bacon.
Do I need nitrites or curing salt to make bacon?
For proper bacon, yes. The nitrites in a curing salt protect the meat as it cures and give bacon its colour and flavour. In an ideal world we would leave them out, but this is the easiest and safest way to cure bacon at home, so never reduce them.
What is the difference between dry cured and wet cured bacon?
Dry cured bacon is rubbed with a salt and sugar cure, then air dried, which makes it firm and full flavoured. Wet cured bacon sits in or is injected with brine, which is why most shop bacon holds water and shrinks in the pan.
Can I make back bacon instead of streaky?
Yes. Streaky comes from pork belly, back bacon from pork loin with the skin removed, and the same cure and method work on either. Belly is the easier first choice because it is thinner and cures more reliably.
How long does home cured bacon keep?
Keep it refrigerated and use it within the timeframe your recipe gives, or freeze it. Slice it or cut it into lardons before freezing, so you are not defrosting the whole joint for one sandwich. Always cook it through before eating.
Is it easier to use a bacon kit?
Much. A kit blends the cure to the right strength and gives you the exact timings, so you learn the craft without weighing curing salt on a scale. Our Ultimate Meat Making Kit bundles bacon with jerky and biltong, though the Beef Jerky Making Kit uses no cure at all, since jerky is dried rather than cured.
Ready to cure your own? Browse our meat making kits, hand-packed in Britain with free UK delivery over £25.
