Addictive Coconut Bacon Flakes

4.67 from 9 votes

These delicious, crispy, smokey flakes will remind you of bacon! They are hard to stop eating, great for salad, soup, loaded baked potatoes or whenever you want bacony goodness.

Course Basics, Side Dish, Snack, topping

Cuisine American, Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword Bacony, flavorful, hit of salt, Meatless, Meaty, savory, vegan, vegetarian

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings servings of 2 TBSPs

Calories 85kcal

Author Plant Test Kitchen

Equipment

An oven
A baking sheet
A mixing bowl
A spatula or something similar

Ingredients

1¾ cups (90 grams) large flake, unsweetened coconut see notes below
1 TBSP oil non-virgin olive oil, avocado oil or other high smoke point oil
2 TBSPs low sodium tamari
1 TBSP maple syrup
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon liquid smoke
½ teaspoon salt fine
¾ teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325° F and line a baking sheet with a sil-mat or parchment paper.
Mix all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl, keep mixing until coconut is uniformly coated.
Spread mixture onto the lined baking sheet as thinly and evenly as possible. Bake for 7 minutes, then remove from oven, stir it up and spread it out again, getting it as even and thin as you can.
Then bake for 6 -8 more minutes, watching during the last few minutes of baking. Ideally, you want golden brown, but it won't look as dark as bacon can look. The trick is to trust that it will crisp up when it's cooling, but not while in the oven. It's better to get it out of the oven too early than to burn it. You can always let it cool to see if it crisps up and then put it back in the oven if it doesn't crisp up.
Let cool for 10 minutes - it will crisp up as it cools.
Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for a 7 - 10 days, or in the freezer for a month. You don't really have to defrost it, it's ready to go out the freezer.

Notes

Nutrition Infomation is approximate.

Coconut Flakes: Be sure to use flakes and not shreds. Also, make sure the flakes are unsweetened. If you are using the thin, small flakes, use 1 & 3/4 cup. If using larger, slightly thicker flakes use 2 cups (approximately 90 grams). Look for coconut flakes in the baking aisle of the grocery store.

Gluten-Free:This recipe is gluten-free as long as you use gluten-free tamari. Tamari is a variety of soy sauce that is usually gluten-free, just check the label to confirm.

I use low sodium, gluten-free tamari in this recipe. If you use full sodium, I'd skip or reduce the salt in this recipe.

www.planttestkitchen.com

Nutrition