Chocolate And This Breakfast Staple Are A Perfect Match

"Swalty" foods are all the rage and with good reason. The combination of sweet and salty flavors is an excellent way to stretch the boundaries of your taste buds and create new foodie experiences. Of the many dynamic duos that begin with chocolate, one savory breakfast food is among the most ideal pairings for your favorite type of chocolate. Bacon and chocolate go together like peanut butter and jelly, if not better.

A most effective matchup between the salty and smoky tastes of a familiar pork product with the decadence of rich chocolate, these two are ideal for a number of different culinary applications. There is a delicate interplay between taste and texture, which comes from the pairing of two food items with vastly different flavors and consistencies. While you can fry up bacon to a perfectly crispy state, chocolate is considerably more melty and indulgent, even when made into bars or candies.

Getting creative with the properties of sweet chocolate and salty bacon, you will find that the two typically lend themselves to dessert and snack-style foods. Though this is so, you could even feasibly use both chocolate and bacon in a salad if you maintain a looser definition of the dish.

From basic to advanced, there are plenty of ways to pair chocolate and bacon to make fulfilling treats. For example, provided you can ensure the best meat-to-sweet ratio for chocolate bacon, this can be a particularly easy snack to prepare. Try frying up and coating your favorite thick-cut bacon with a layer of milk or dark chocolate. For even more fun, add a sprinkle of brown sugar, cinnamon, or chili powder to your bacon prior to covering it with chocolate. Bite-sized pieces of chocolate-covered bacon also make a great addition to your favorite snack mix, like a chocolate-coconut puppy chow recipe or in a homemade chocolate bar.

You can also use pieces of chocolate-covered bacon as the topping to an ice cream sundae, cakes, or cupcakes, too. Similarly, bacon makes the perfect addition to next-level brownies. If you really want to harness the power of bacon in your sweets, try preparing a ganache frosting using dark chocolate, coconut oil, maple syrup, and chopped pieces of bacon.

It's up to you just how much bacon you want to incorporate into your chocolate and vice versa. Take a lighter touch by adding small pieces of bacon to the frosting of cakes and cupcakes. You can also mix bits of bacon into the filling for a brown sugar bacon chocolate cake. No matter how you prepare this "swalty" combo, it's sure to impress.