Bacon
Pork in the Midwest · up 9% this week
Per a typical 30g serving, scaled from the per-100g figures in USDA FoodData Central (Pork, cured, bacon, unprepared).
- 1 SoutheastCheapest $6.10/lb
- 2 Midwest $6.15/lb
- 3 Southcentral $6.32/lb
- 4 Northwest $6.47/lb
- 5 Northeast $6.79/lb
- 6 Southwest $7.15/lb
Buying bacon in the Southeast saves about 15% versus the Southwest this week.
- How to pick a good one
- Look through the window in the pack at the actual slices — you want long, even strips with a good ratio of meat to fat, not slices that are almost entirely fat at one end. Thick-cut suits roasting and dicing; thin-cut crisps faster.
- What a good price looks like
- Usually $5 to $9 a pound, with thick-cut and speciality at the top. Under $5 is a good price. Because it loses more than half its weight, the cost per pound of cooked bacon is over $12 even on ad — it is a flavouring ingredient economically, not a protein.
- What you actually get
- A pound of bacon cooks down to roughly 6 oz — a loss of well over half, most of it rendered fat and water. That is 16 to 20 rashers raw, serving four to six. You typically recover half a cup of fat from a pound, which has real cooking value.
- How to store it
- Unopened, until the printed date. Once opened, about a week refrigerated. Bacon freezes well; rolling the slices individually before freezing lets you take two at a time.
- In the kitchen
- Cold bacon separates cleanly and warm bacon tears, so take rashers straight from the fridge and peel from a corner. To dice it for lardons, freeze the slab or the stacked rashers for fifteen minutes first and it cuts into neat batons rather than smearing. Kitchen scissors are faster than a knife for cutting rashers into pieces.
- Getting the most out of it
- Start bacon in a cold pan and bring the heat up gradually, which renders the fat before the meat scorches. Oven-cooking on a tray is easier for a full pack. Keep the rendered fat — it is a free cooking fat and keeps for months in the fridge.
- Bacon Pizza with Caramelized PineappleRecipe by Budget Bytes~$0.45 / serving 1 in-season
- Bacon Cheddar Drop BiscuitsRecipe by Two Peas & Their Pod~$0.46 / serving 0 in-season
- Cheesy Jalapeño Cornbread RecipeRecipe by Foodie Crush~$0.47 / serving 2 in-season
- Leftover Mashed Potato Cheese & Bacon CakesRecipe by RecipeTin Eats~$0.57 / serving 1 in-season
- Easy Garden Salad RecipeRecipe by Natasha's Kitchen~$0.57 / serving 3 in-season
- Ricotta GnocchiRecipe by Natasha's Kitchen~$0.59 / serving 0 in-season
See all 675 recipes with bacon →Filter by diet, time, budget, and macros.
Price from the USDA weekly retail meat report (conventional, per lb). Nutrition per typical serving, computed from USDA FoodData Central.
Bacon — FAQ
What's the price of bacon this week?
As of the week of October 2, 2026, the price of bacon in the Midwest is $6.15/lb, up 9% from last week. Prices come from the USDA's weekly retail meat report.
Which region has the cheapest bacon right now?
The Southeast has the cheapest bacon this week at $6.10/lb — about 15% less than the Southwest, where it runs $7.15/lb.
How much protein is in bacon?
A typical 30g serving of bacon has about 4.1g protein and 118 calories (11.1g fat), per USDA FoodData Central.
What can I cook with bacon?
SeasonSort indexes 675 recipes using bacon, each priced per serving from this week's data — starting from about $0.12 a serving. The cheapest are listed on this page, with a link to the full filtered list.