Portobacon.

Most people, when faced with the exciting prospect of having a sleeve of portobello mushrooms all to themselves, will ponder the endless ways they could be put to use.

 I heart you Costco.

You see, you can marinate and grill them or chop them up to eat them raw or saute them to make Seitan Portobello Stroganoff. The healthy, hearty uses for these fungi fun guys (I'm not even gonna apologize for that one. That was hilarious.) are endless. They're nutritional powerhouses with their richness in selenium, copper and niacin all while being low calorie and fat free.

Naturally, I chose to make bacon out of them.

In re-reading my bacon post from a few days ago I realized that a lot of my bacon alternatives have soy in them. Couple that with the fact that I use soy in other places throughout the day and you've got, well, a lot of soy. I'm kind of a fan of the "everything in moderation" approach, and so I don't demonize soy but I also think that if you start the day with tempeh bacon and a tofu omelet, hit up some Chipotle sofritos for lunch and then heap a dollop of Tofutti sour cream on your dinner you may be overdoing it. These are NOT soy free either in that there is some soy sauce in the marinade, but in an effort to start leaning away from a dependence on everything soy for my day to day dining decisions I think they're a good start.

So, Portobello Bacon came to be the topper of choice on my baked potato.

The key to making these super yummy is to slice the mushroom cap into the thinnest possible slices. I mean, I want Calista Flockheart width slices here. The thicker the slice, the meatier the result will be, which isn't unpleasant by any means, but it isn't as bacon reminiscent as you're going to desire.

Once sliced, I placed the mushrooms in a Ziplock baggy with a marinade, flipping the bag from time to time in my refrigerator to make sure all of the mushroom slices had equal bathing time.

Portobello Mushroom Bacon

Ingredients
1 portobello mushroom cap
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp vegan worcestershire sauce
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp ketchup
1 tsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder

Directions

Slice mushroom into the thinnest possible slices.

Place all ingredients into a small bowl and cover or a Ziplock sandwich bag and seal.

Place in refrigerator and allow mushroom to marinate for at least an hour, stirring carefully or flipping the bag a time or too take make sure mushrooms get evenly marinated.

Heat a very thin coating of oil over medium low heat in a cast iron or nonstick skillet. (I used about a tsp of coconut oil).

Add marinated mushrooms, being careful not to crowd them in the pan. Allow them to cook for a couple of minutes and then flip. Continue this until mushrooms achieve the desired level of crispiness, adding a little marinade as you go if they appear to be sticking to the pan.

Portobacon. It's sweeping the nation.

The whole point of making these was because I was craving a loaded baked potato and I didn't want it to be a soy bomb. Using the pub cheese that I made the other day, I topped a baked russet potato with steamed broccoli florets, pub cheese, Toffuti sour cream and my freshly browned up portobacon.

Get. In. My. Face.

You know how, like, you get all excited about something and then you take pictures of it from multiple angles like a tourist in your own kitchen?

This angle has a better view of the happiness in a jar. Oh, sorry, I mean the pub cheese.

I am obsessed with this and had it for dinner the next night as well. It was creamy, crispy, cheesy and broccoli-y. 

What? That is too a word.