Everybody loves a good food hack, so when I saw this marvelous creation on Reddit, obviously I had to share it: Bacon pancake dippers. You heard me — long, strip-shaped pancakes with whole pieces of bacon embedded right inside them. Pick ‘em up with your fingers, dunk ‘em in some maple syrup, and voila — best breakfast ever. I don’t know how I managed not to dream them up myself, but I’m sure glad someone else did.
But then I got to thinking: How many other bacon hacks are there that could be total game-changers when it comes to weekend brunch? And I don’t mean the ones that require actual recipes; I mean quick and dirty little tricks that result in some of the most delicious and aesthetically interesting breakfast foods ever. Accordingly, I scoured Imgur and Reddit for the best bacon hacks around, assembling the results here.
It’s probably worth noting that consuming the amount of bacon involved in some of these treats will probably make your arteries explode; as such, you might want to proceed with caution. As long as you’re careful, though, you should be able to make it through one of these meals with maximum bacon-ness and minimum damage. Everything in moderation, right?
1. Bacon Pancake Dippers
Confession: I love bacon… I love pancakes… but usually, I don’t love bacon pancakes. I can never actually taste the bacon once it’s been chopped up into tiny pieces and mixed with the pancake batter. That’s not a problem with these pancake dippers, though, because each of them has a whole strip of bacon right in the middle. I’d call that a win.
2. Baked Bacon Egg Cups
Got a muffin tin? Good. Grab it. Take your raw bacon and curl it up in each cup so that you’ve essentially made yourself a set of bacon cupcake liners; then crack an egg in each one. Add some herbs if you like, or don’t — totally up to you. Bake the whole thing, and lo! From the depths of your oven emerge these gorgeous breakfast bites.
3. Bacon Cinnamon Rolls
You don’t even need to make your cinnamon rolls from scratch, although if you do, that’ll definitely take these babies to the next level. But if all you’ve got are Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, that’s A-OK: Just unroll them, put a strip of bacon in them, roll them back up, and bake them according to the directions.
4. Bacon Breakfast Pizza
Obviously this one works best if the pizza you ordered the night before actually is a bacon pizza — but even if it’s not, all you need to do the next morning is cook up some bacon, fry an egg or two, and slap the whole shebang onto a leftover slice.
5. Bacon-Wrapped Bananas
Totally acceptable as a breakfast food. I’ll confess that I’m not entirely sure I know how one would make these; I assume it involves wrapping raw bacon around banana slices, laying them out on a cookie sheet, and baking them, but that’s mostly speculation. Any other guesses?
6. Bacon Sandwich
I don’t just mean a sandwich with bacon in it; I mean a sandwich in which the pieces of “bread” are actually made of bacon. Add some peanut butter and a banana, and you’ve got an Elvis-wich. Bacon weaves can be used for a variety of other purposes, by the way; you might, for example, try sticking it in the middle of an egg sandwich like this fellow did here. It stops the bacon pieces from falling out once you bite into the thing.
7. Bacon Pie
This one is filled with mac and cheese, which may not seem super breakfast-y; but what’s not to say you couldn’t fill the thing with eggs and cheese and have done with it? It's like a quiche, only better. Way better.
8. Chocolate-Covered Bacon
Bacon is for breakfast; this bacon is covered in chocolate; ergo, chocolate is for breakfast.
9. Bacon Roses
For that special someone’s surprise breakfast in bed.
10. Bacon Breakfast Taco
Another use for the bacon weave. See how creative you can get with it?
11. Bacon Donuts
Fancy-schmancy donut shops often feature maple bacon donuts like these ones. If the only option near you is Dunkin’, though, you can still partake in this bacon-y, donut-y magnificence. Who says you can’t just cook your own bacon and stick it on top of a chain store donut?
12. Bacon Ron Swanson
To which I can say only this:
Happy brunching!
Images: cookbookman17/Flickr; Imgur (12); Giphy
