4. Neese’s Southern Style Bacon
Ask anybody in North Carolina (and probably much of Virginia and South Carolina) if they’ve heard of Neese’s and they’ll tell you that Neese’s makes the best sausage you can get your hands on. Neese’s is a well-known pork breakfast meat company putting out incredible breakfast sausages, delicious crispy liver pudding, and other southern classics such as C-Loaf, scrapple, and souse. So how come most people don’t know about Neese’s bacon? Maybe it’s a new venture for them or maybe it hasn’t been until recently that they’ve started spreading their bacon out to more towns.
Regardless of when and where this bacon hit the shelves, it’s a superb product from a company who built their reputation on creating above-average pork products. This bacon comes in the simple, yet identifiable, Neese’s packaging. Advertised as Naturally Hickory Smoked and Southern Style, it’s a testament to the old ways of southern cooking. Southern cooking isn’t easy and is painstakingly long and detailed. So one can only hope, and trust, that Neese’s is done the RIGHT way.
The sausage that made Neese’s famous!
Although not advertised as thick sliced, these strips are above average in thickness, and this is a great thing. The marbled fat is easy to see due to a stark contrast in white and pink/red throughout the package. It is a little higher in fat content and a little saltier too. The texture is marvelous and it crisps up very easily, much like the Carolina Pride Thick Sliced bacon. Unfortunately the small end of each strip curled up almost 1/3 of the way. That’s not a terrible thing, but it makes it a little harder to get a fully crisp strip. Nonetheless, the texture is crispy on the outsides but very soft and juicy on the inside.
The taste is phenomenal and is very salt-forward. The smokiness leans more on the low side of things but is subtly apparent and accents the pork flavor very nicely. I love salty bacon, as you probably know by now. But this Neese’s bacon walks the line between perfectly salted and too salty. I can’t complain, however, as it is very pleasing all around. This bacon might be better suited mixed in with other flavors, like on a BLT or a bacon & gouda frittata! No matter what your fancy, you’ll likely be extremely pleased with Neese’s bacon! I know I was!