• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
hot for food
  • Recipes
  • Cookbooks
  • About
  • Events
  • book me
  • Travel
  • News
  • FAQs
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Cookbooks
  • About
  • Events
  • book me
  • Travel
  • News
  • FAQs
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • TikTok
    • YouTube
  • ×
    Home » Recipes » recipes

    cassava bacon

    January 4, 2016 by Lauren Toyota 20 Comments

    Jump to Recipe
    cassava bacon_hot for food

    Are you ready? This is the holy grail of veggie bacon... and I discovered it! Honestly, it's the best veggie bacon I've ever tried or made and it's made from cassava (also known as yuca). It's a starchy weird looking root veg.

    It's actually how tapioca starch is made too, when dried, and I use that all the time as a thickener instead of cornstarch!

    These crispy cassava bacon slices were layered on crisp lettuce leaves and drizzled in vegan caesar dressing for one hell of a salad.

    vegan cassava bacon recipe

    This was part of my latest YouTube episode for the big salad challenge. Watch the madness below! You can also get the recipe for the roasted carrot & avocado salad here. 

    cassava bacon_hot for food

    cassava bacon

    This cassava bacon is officially the holy grail of veggie bacon... no joke! Make it and serve it with a crunchy and creamy vegan caesar salad.
    3.67 from 3 votes
    Print Pin Rate
    Course: Appetizer, Salad
    Cuisine: American
    Keyword: bacon, cassava, vegan bacon, yuca
    Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes
    Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes
    marinate: 15 minutes minutes
    Total Time: 30 minutes minutes
    Servings: 4
    Author: Lauren Toyota

    Ingredients

    • 1 cassava/yuca root
    • ¼ C low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
    • 1 tablespoon liquid smoke
    • 2 tablespoon maple syrup
    • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
    • pinch sea salt
    • coconut oil, for frying

    Instructions

    • Combine low-sodium soy sauce, liquid smoke, maple syrup, smoked paprika, and sea salt together in a dish.
    • Peel the tough brown skin off the cassava and discard. Using the peeler, shave off strips of the cassava root. Marinade the strips of cassava in the dish with the sauce for 10 to 15 minutes.
    • When ready to cook, heat a non-stick pan over medium heat with coconut oil and once the pan is hot place 4 to 5 strips into the pan. Cook time is about 4 to 5 minutes for the first side, and 3 minutes after flipped. You might need to lower the heat as you're frying in batches so the pan doesn't get too hot.
    • Once or twice while frying the strips, add a little bit more of the marinade to the pan to help caramelize the strips of cassava bacon.
    • Remove the fried pieces from the pan and place onto a plate. No need for paper towel to catch the grease! In fact, placing the strips on paper towel isn't advised as they will stick.

    Notes

    The serving size varies depending on what you're making. I used half a root and had enough bacon for about 3 to 4 large caesar salads. You can either shave half the cassava as per the recipe or use the whole thing and double the marinade amounts.
    If you've heard that cassava is poisonous and contains cyanide, you're not wrong. But you don't need to worry about it. From our research it seems that the issue is with the bitter variety of cassava which is harder to prepare (to cook out the cyanide) and it isn't the one commonly sold in our supermarkets. Cooking the cassava properly is all that matters. You can read more here. 
    If you want to make the caesar dressing and croutons get those recipes here in the original kale caesar salad post.
     
     

    More recipes

    • veggie vegan cream cheese hot for food recipe
      easy veggie vegan cream cheese
    • chef Lauren Toyota at her Toronto event holding a lemon meringue tart
      comfort classics vegan supper club
    • a serving of vegan chocolate mousse
      decadent vegan chocolate mousse
    • diners view showing the inside of vegan ham and cheese croissant
      easy vegan ham and cheese croissants

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. zeeto

      January 07, 2016 at 12:11 am

      Looks amazing. Hopefully I can find yucca in my grocery store...

      Reply
    2. Dan

      January 07, 2016 at 6:38 pm

      Thanks for the recipe! I'm always looking for a good bacon recipe. I never would have thought of this.

      Just fyi, cassava = yuca ("yoo-ka"). Yucca is something quite different! Sorry for being pedantic, but I don't want people to get confused.

      Reply
      • Lauren Toyota

        January 07, 2016 at 6:41 pm

        you're welcome!
        that's ok, BUT how come at the grocery store is says both things on the label AND when you google it also says cassava (or yucca or arrowroot or tapioca) ... tell me! I have no idea

      • Dan

        January 07, 2016 at 8:17 pm

        I've seen it labeled incorrectly on menus and it is an easy mistake to make. Try googling "yuca vs. yucca."

      • Danny chavarro

        May 17, 2016 at 10:22 pm

        Yucca is a shrublike plant.. yuca is the root vegetable.. however stores and restaurants interchange them alot.

    3. Matt Hughes

      February 13, 2016 at 5:33 pm

      How long will the root last if you put it in the marinade and put it in the fridge for later? I'm about to find out 🙂

      Reply
    4. Tina

      July 31, 2016 at 10:45 pm

      I'm on an oil free diet. can i bake the cassava and get it crispy? Degrees? 350?400?

      Reply
    5. Christina

      August 30, 2016 at 12:35 am

      Looks amazing! I'm not vegan (although have been seriously considering) & I want to make this! 😀

      Reply
      • Lauren Toyota

        September 02, 2016 at 2:43 pm

        give it a go! It will convert you 😉

    6. Marij

      October 15, 2016 at 2:28 pm

      No problem finding cassava here in the Netherlands, but what on earth is liquid smoke!?

      Reply
      • Marij

        October 15, 2016 at 2:32 pm

        Wait! I've found it, who knew!!?

      • rob

        November 02, 2016 at 2:00 pm

        hi! where did you find it in the netherlands??

    7. Caitlin

      March 10, 2017 at 2:08 pm

      Oh, nice! I'm from the Caribbean and cassava is everywhere, and for once I'm in luck.Gonna try this one out today!

      Reply
    8. Kajsa

      June 10, 2017 at 10:51 pm

      I don't know what I'm doing wrong with this. I just tried to make this but had to use Agave nectar instead of Maple syrup. A lot of things went wrong I think. First of all my slices didn't come out broad and intact when i peeled it. Then my marinad seemed to be way to thick (keep in mind that I halved the recipe in half) but I'm guessing that's because of the agave nectar, it's a bit thicker than maple syrup is, at least here in Sweden. After the cassava had layed in the marinad for 15 mins and I was about to put them in the pan (heated at meduim and maybe a little hotter) the pieces all fell apart into really small, uneven shapes when I tried to take them out of the bowl. Since my marinade were kind of thick it looked more like I were going to make cassava wings instead of cauliflower. If you have any tips or tricks to share with me I'd gladly try them! I really want them to be crispy and flavourful, of course. ^^

      Reply
    9. Emily

      June 11, 2017 at 2:59 am

      I made this but with king oyster mushrooms instead and it was great! Thanks for sharing

      Reply
    10. Emi Ayau

      August 04, 2017 at 5:08 am

      Hi Lauren,

      I am in the process of converting my family...they have no choice. Lol. We live in Hawaii, and a favorite food is Spam musubi. I know it's terrible, but we've grown up eating this and we love it. I am currently marinating sliced tofu in your bacon marinade. The sauce tastes amazing! Can't wait to try the final product. I doubled the soy sauce and maple, but did not double the smoke or paprika. It's plenty smokey without the extra. Thanks for a wonderful recipe.

      Reply
    11. Kaitlyn

      June 26, 2019 at 11:50 am

      okay, I live on the American east coast and I just tried this out. I have a few thoughts on how it went.

      arguably this is a recipe that will take some practice to get exactly right, as with most other recipes. cassava makes for a very convincing chewy bacon texture when not completely crisp, and the marinade is obviously delicious. a couple of tips I have for someone who might not be as experienced a cook and confused about the recipe:

      1. the maple syrup in this recipe is going to cause the marinade to carmelize quite a bit, especially while frying in a hot pan. this means you should expect some areas on the bacon to burn or char, for the end result to be a bit sticky, and for a layer of burnt sugar to build up on the bottom of your pan. you can handle this last point by waiting until it cools, adding some water to the pan (a few cups maybe), and simmering until all the sugar lifts off the bottom.

      2. when you drizzle more of the marinade over the frying cassava, make sure you do so *evenly*. if you just drizzle it randomly, you'll get parts that will caramelize more than others, leaving some areas burnt and others not well cooked.

      3. this is NOT a walk-away-and-leave-it-to-finish recipe. expect to stay near the stove and finish the whole batch at once. I use a gas burner and I needed to adjust the heat constantly, flip the bacon pieces multiple times to cook them evenly, and shift them around the pan because some areas were hotter than others. even leaving it alone for 5 minutes could mean charring it completely (which does not taste nice, I can assure you).

      4. remember to keep adding a little bit of coconut oil between batches so that there's a layer of fat between the burning sugar on the bottom of the pan and the bacon pieces.

      5. freshly caramelized sugar is several times hotter than boiled water, and obviously a good deal more difficult to remove once you touch it. wait for these to cool before handling them. you could seriously hurt yourself.

      6. when these come out of the pan, they will look very shiny. naturally you'll assume this is due to the grease. while there's definitely some fat kicking around on the outside, the shine is mostly caramel. keep this in mind before you decide to neglect lauren's instructions and place them on a paper towel anyway.

      hopefully these are helpful, and I wish everyone luck!

      Reply
    3.67 from 3 votes (2 ratings without comment)

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Primary Sidebar

    Lauren Toyota is hot for food… as long as it’s vegan! She’s cooking up vegan love and bringing the increasingly popular lifestyle to food fans across the globe.

    More about me →

    popular

    • hot for holidays 2 ebook
      hot for holidays: MORE next level vegan recipes for a festive feast
    • overhead and close up of the tops of miso caramel sticky buns
      miso caramel cinnamon rolls
    • overhead of a serving of pineapple ginger snap ice cream
      vegan pineapple ginger snap ice cream
    • bowl of dill pick dip with a chip sitting in it
      dill pickle dip

    explore recipes

    • appetizers
    • bbq
    • breakfast
    • burgers
    • desserts
    • drinks
    • mains
    • salads
    • sandwiches
    • sauces
    • snacks
    • soups
    Nothing But Noods_cover

    featured on

    Footer

    ↑ back to top
    • privacy policy
    • about

    site by go-to-seo.com

    Copyright © 2024 hot for food LLC

    Rate This Recipe

    Your vote:




    A rating is required
    A name is required
    An email is required

    Recipe Ratings without Comment

    Something went wrong. Please try again.