1Chop your bacon and cook until almost crisp, stirring it around often.
2Drain all but ½ TBS or so of the bacon grease out.
3Add in the onions and sauté for about 5 minutes.
4Next, add in the garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes, stirring the whole time.
5Add in brown sugar, vinegars and water. Stir and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
6Add in Thyme sprigs and pepper and continue simmering another few minutes, stirring often, being careful not to burn.
7Taste and adjust seasoning to your preference if necessary.
8Remove Thyme sprigs and allow the mixture to cool.
9You can then pulse the jam a few times in your food processor for a finer jam or leave it as is.
10Once completely cool, store in airtight jars in your refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
11Heat it up a bit to enjoy on whatever you like. If you need to after reheating adding a TBS or so of water if the jam is too thick
Ingredients
2 pounds Bacon
1.5 cups chopped Vidalia onion
4 large cloves garlic, minced or 3 TBS garlic paste
1 cup brown sugar
0.25 cup sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
2 TBS balsamic vinegar
0.25 cup water
6 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 Black pepper
2 TBS Cayenne red pepper and maple syrup
Equipment
frying panfood processormason jar
Tips
If you want a more sticky gooey jam, add in a ½ cup to 1 cup of fig jam after you remove what you made from the heat, just stir until its mixed in.
The addition of the fig jam makes the Bacon Jam sweeter. You can counter that (if you wish) by adding in some Cayenne pepper, which I do in the written recipe.
The trick to making it is having your ingredients prepped and organized and then as the mixture cooks down into jam that you pay attention to taste and texture. You don't want it to burn.
Store in a mason Jar for up to a week. I like to gently reheat this before using