The Type Of Bacon Dunkin' Uses That Most Other Fast Food Chains Don't
Like a lot of fast food restaurants, Dunkin' features bacon on the menu. It appears on sandwiches, limited-edition donuts, and even with a little seasoning as a standalone item called Snackin' Bacon. But Dunkin's bacon is slightly different from virtually all fast food and fast casual bacon on the market: it's smoked with cherrywood.
Cherrywood-smoked bacon tastes quite similar to the far more common applewood-smoked bacon. They are both mildly sweet and smoky, though cherrywood-smoked bacon may be slightly sweeter. Most consumers do not taste the difference between the two, though they may have seen it: cherrywood-smoked bacon, including Dunkin's, is noticeably redder in color compared to applewood-smoked bacon, which is nearly ubiquitous in fast food.
Dunkin' sells cherrywood-smoked bacon in two formats. It either comes as part of larger menu items like sandwiches or as Snackin' Bacon, which is what it sounds like: a small bag of loose bacon strips, tossed in a sugary, peppery seasoning blend. However, when the bacon goes on a sandwich or something similar, it does not typically receive this seasoning.
How smoked are smoked bacons?
Applewood and cherrywood bacon are similar enough that they're both considered types of smoked bacon, itself one of 14 different types of bacon. Cheaper brands will cut corners by injecting the meat with liquid smoke flavoring, but labels that claim it was hardwood- or naturally smoked means it actually spent time in a smoker.
Dunkin's bacon is genuinely smoked with cherry wood, though a peek at the ingredients list shows additional smoke flavoring (which is not unheard of among fast food restaurants). The added smokiness helps in Dunkin's underrated sourdough breakfast sandwich, where it cuts the richness of two eggs and white cheddar cheese.
Added flavor or not, smoked bacon is perhaps the most popular type and the most common to find for sale. But the best thick-cut bacon you can buy was neither apple wood nor cherry (according to our reviewer). Smithfield's Naturally Hickory Smoked Thick-Cut Bacon hit all the right notes: crispy, savory, gently sweet, and genuinely hickory smoked with no added flavor. Hickory is commonly thought to impart the strongest flavor of all smoking woods, so it's a sure hit for anyone seeking a smoky finish.