Healthy Bacon Recipes

This egg salad is made with a smoky Greek yogurt dressing, which pairs perfectly with some savory, crunchy bacon, red onions and chives.

This is a brilliant marriage of two classics: cornmeal-dusted green tomatoes and a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

Bruce Sherman tosses nutty, protein-rich quinoa with smoky bacon and toasted almonds to make a substantial side dish that’s delicious with poached eggs or roasted chicken.

This salad typically includes crispy slices of Chinese sausage. Here, thick slices of bacon are brushed with a honey-soy mix and then baked in the oven until crunchy.

Grace Parisi uses a lemongrass wet rub in her Asian twist on the tuna burger, spiked with smoky bacon.

In this riff on a Southern classic, corn, potatoes and bacon are tossed with cider vinegar. Because the corn for this salad is barely cooked, it’s best to use the juiciest kernels available.

“How many lunchrooms have disgusting Taco Tuesdays?” asks chef Spike Mendelsohn. As an alternative, he stuffs burritos with scrambled eggs (lightened with egg whites), feta, turkey bacon and spinach.

This satisfying riff on smothered pork chops calls for skinless chicken drumsticks, which have only slightly more fat than breasts, as well as more zinc and iron and tons more flavor.

Adding collard greens, bell pepper, corn and carrot to a rustic butternut squash soup is Mary Ellen Diaz’s clever way of making it even more healthy. Together these vegetables deliver vitamins A and C as well as fiber and powerful antioxidants.

Grilling kale gives it a toasty flavor; the smartest way to prepare kale for grilling is blanching it so it becomes tender and doesn’t burn.

For the Italian breakfast dish Eggs in Purgatory, eggs are baked in a spicy tomato sauce. In this Mexican-inspired take, Grace Parisi substitutes a vibrant, fresh green sauce made with tomatillos, cilantro and scallions.

In New Orleans, red beans and rice are traditionally served on Mondays because the dish uses up leftover Sunday ham. Grace Parisi likes making the recipe any day of the week, and she replaces the ham with smoky bacon.

To make this Italian-style salad, Joy Manning tosses cubes of bread with just a little B (bacon) and lots of healthy L (soft butter lettuce) and T (small yellow and red tomatoes). Instead of mayonnaise, she blends the basil-inflected dressing with protein-rich soft tofu.

“In 1994, when I enrolled at the Culinary Institute oh America in Hyde Park, I had to catch up on so much—it was like I had a virgin palate for food and wine,” says Rajat Parr. “For instance, I’d never had a scallop before; I didn’t even know what they were. I had never seen a chestnut before, either. So cooking school was an eye-opening experience.”

This dish offers a fitness-minded mix of lean chicken and calcium-packed watercress. Canadian bacon, with just a fraction of the calories and fat of bacon, gives the salad a slightly sweet and salty flavor.

A light broth loaded with chunky Great Northern beans and topped with a sprinkling of bacon, this soup was inspired by caldo gallego, a Spanish white-bean soup.

Green peas add a nice sweetness to this fast and healthy succotash.