When you don’t know what else to make for dinner, pasta and a jar of sauce are always a reliable choice. In fact, some of us might default to this option a little too often, and we need some variety to shake it up. A simple tomato sauce base opens up a world of possibilities for incorporating new flavors into your recipe, including more unexpected options. For a more salty, meaty flavor in your homemade or store-bought pasta sauce, consider adding pork to the recipe — specifically diced bacon.
Bacon is a juicy, tender cut of meat (unless you’re one of those folks who like it nearly burnt to a crisp), and it releases a lot of grease when it cooks. This grease is liquid gold for cooking pasta sauce. You don’t need to add any cooking oil to the recipe. After cooking the bacon, you can use that leftover grease to infuse incredible flavor into the onions, tomato chunks, mushrooms, garlic, or any other vegetable before adding the sauce. The sauce will take on a rich depth from the pork grease, and you can toss smaller pastas right into the skillet with it or pour the mix over your spaghetti.
Bring home the bacon in your pasta sauce
Bacon isn’t a traditional ingredient for spaghetti, but there is a precedent for adding pork to sauce. Ragu Bolognese includes pancetta, a cut of pork belly similar to bacon, along with beef in the tomato sauce. Some recipes use pork in the meatballs or sausages in red sauce as well. And, of course, amatriciana sauce gets its savory notes from guanciale (cured pork jowl). It’s not a stretch to say that bacon works with spaghetti and tomato sauce, but just keep in mind how drastically the ingredient can shift the flavor profile. A standard tomato basil sauce is light, refreshing, and ideally highlights the sweet, balanced flavor of plum tomatoes, such as San Marzano. Bacon will make the sauce richer and come forward on your palate, allowing those acidic and herbal notes to take a back seat.
If you like a hearty sauce, bacon on its own can do a lot, but a little bit of beef bouillon and Marsala wine will make the sauce sweeter and saltier. On the other hand, for a lighter sauce that doesn’t feel too heavy, adding white wine and removing some of the grease before mixing the tomatoes and bacon will lighten the flavor.
Bacon tends to work well with spicier flavors, so it’s a natural fit for something like an arrabbiata sauce. Anything with peppery flavors is a match made in heaven, so a lot of non-tomato sauces get along with bacon, too. Alfredo and other creamy sauces elevate bacon with the addition of paprika, cayenne, or a Cajun seasoning blend. With this one breakfast ingredient, you’ll never be left wondering how to dress up a boring sauce.
