Lazy Dog

Menu Description: “Bacon baked with brown sugar, crushed red pepper chili flakes, black pepper.”

If you like candy and you like bacon it’s a sure bet that you’ll go crazy over bacon candy. Although the basic recipe of sugaring raw bacon and baking it until crispy is not at all complicated or secret, the variations of this simple formula are numerous. My goal was to try as many techniques as I could to figure out what works best, and then customize the recipe to duplicate the incredible bacon candy you’ll find on the appetizer menu at the fast-growing 44-unit Lazy Dog chain.

Lazy Dog knows that really good bacon candy should be more than just sweet and salty, so chefs there sprinkle in some black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes to perk up the party. Thick cut bacon works best here, and you’ll need a rack for the bacon to rest on while it bakes so air can move around the slices. And do yourself a favor: line the baking sheet with foil for an easier cleanup of the inevitable greasy, sugary mess.

Lazy Dog Bacon candy is great on its own as a small appetizer, sprinkled with fresh parsley and served upright in a cup, just like in the restaurant. Or you can use it as a garnish in this amazing hack for Lazy Dog Crispy Deviled Eggs. 

Find more of your favorite appetizer recipes from your favorite restaurants here.

Menu Description: “Lightly fried, topped with smoked paprika + bacon candy.”

Lazy Dog Crispy Deviled eggs are hard-boiled egg whites that are breaded and fried until crispy, then filled with the creamy yolk mixture, sprinkled with smoked paprika, and topped with the best thing that ever topped a deviled egg: bacon candy! 

We'll start with my preferred way to hard-boil the eggs, to get beautifully yellow yolks with no grey tint to them. Those bright yellow yolks are removed and flavored, then spooned back into the crispy breaded whites.

I'm also including my hack for cloning two slices of the chain's great brown sugar candied bacon. If you want to make extra bacon candy to munch on check out my recipe for Lazy Dog's Bacon Candy appetizer and you’ll get five slices of bacon candy. That’s two for your Lazy Dog Crispy Deviled Eggs recipe, and three for you to eat and share.