Vegan Maple Tempeh Bacon

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Bacon has to be one of the most addicting "foods" on the planet right next to cheese. But let's face it, it's been known not to be great for you and it definitely isn't good for the animals, or the planet.

Vegan bacon gets a bad reputation from a lot of hardcore meat-eaters, and I get it, I used to be one of them. However, bacon gets 90% of the flavor from seasoning and smoking. I don't think anyone would like bacon if they had to eat it raw from the animal.

I was never much of a bacon person, to be fair. While I did eat it sometimes, I wasn't crazy over it. So this is just a nice little treat for when I'm really wanting something like a BLT. Adding it to other things is just a bonus!

Jump to:

• 🍲Ingredients
• 📝Ingredient Notes
• 🔪Marinate
• 🍳How to cook Vegan Bacon
• 💡Extra Tips and Other Uses
• ❓Frequently Asked Questions
• 📖 Recipe

🍲Ingredients

Yes, I spilled the soy sauce just before taking a picture. This is Struggle Kitchen after all!

📝Ingredient Notes

To make this recipe soy-free, you will most-likely need to make your own soy-free tempeh using things like lentils, chickpeas, or black beans. It is an easy process, but it does take a couple of days.

Use any sugars in place of maple syrup, but I can't recommend artifical sugars like stevia as the taste may completely change.

For gluten-free use tamari or coconut amnio's in place of soy sauce.

🔪Marinate

Step 1: in your bowl/dish of choice, whisk the soy sauce, maple syrup, rice vinegar, and liquid smoke. If you don't spill any, are you really mixing it well?

Step 2: Take a brick of tempeh, and depending on the type of dish you're using, place it into the mixture. As you can see, I broke mine in half. Then, place into the fridge for at least 4 hours to overnight to marinate.

Step 3: You will need to flip the tempeh over and get the other side coated. If you were able to cover the whole brick, you can skip this step!

Step 4: Depending on how you plan to use your vegan bacon, I've shown two ways to enjoy it, by crumbling it for vegan bacon bits, or by slicing it to place on sandwiches.

Step 5: Fry it up!

🍳How to cook Vegan Bacon

Tempeh bacon is super easy to cook and takes 5 minutes at most! If you're using slices, cook each side until some browning/crisping appears.

If you're using a crumble, cook until heated through and some browning starts to happen. Then proceed to use it on everything, I enjoyed them on my vegan macaroni salad!

💡Extra Tips and Other Uses

• Allowing the tempeh to marinate over night will obviously give more flavors!
• You can freeze tempeh to keep it fresh until you're ready to use it, including after you've cooked it!
• Feel free to add other seasonings to your marinade, you can use any flavorings you want. Some like to add garlic and onion powder or nutritional yeast.
• You can use this vegan bacon in anything you would use regular bacon for: sandwiches like a BLT or wrap, toppings regular salads, soups, or baked potatoes!
• Store for up to 5 days in the fridge, or 2 months in the freezer.

❓Frequently Asked Questions

📖 Recipe