Trader Joe's Salmon Bacon

The pros: Trader Joe's Salmon Bacon is nice and smoky flavored that makes you feel like you are eating a "healthy" bacon.

The cons:  Price. Once the smoke subsides, there is a strong fish flavor.

The verdict:  For $5.74 or $13.99 per pound, this is one of the more expensive bacons available at Trader Joe's. Fish isn't cheap. This fish has been chopped and formed to make it look like bacon. Visually the strips are about the same size as regular bacon. This cooks much quicker than regular bacon. When you bite into it you get nothing but smoky flavor.

Once that smoke subsides, that's when this product starts to go terribly wrong. Whenever fish or most other products involve the words chopped and formed (except for turkey bacon, that worked) you should think your purchase over carefully. I was left with a product that tasted fishy. In my effort to get it browned as the directions mention, I had clearly allowed most of the hydration to disappear.

Sadly, unlike salmon in its more natural form, this does not have those great stripes of fat, which allows that fish to taste so very good. I regretted cooking this product and was instantly wishing for lox in it's place. I think this product is trying too hard to be a fully cooked lox and failed at it miserably.

Truth is, lox is really salmon bacon. There probably can never be a chopped, formed, smoked salmon bacon. It ruins a perfectly good product. For me, this is a clear no. I'll have lox in place of this any day, and I'd recommend the same to you. My cat, Gary (yes, I named my cat after a SpongeBob character) however would strongly disagree with my statement. While cleaning the kitchen, Gary helped himself to at least one slice and seemed to regret nothing. Rather than toss this product, I found it in my heart to share this with him (in small pieces over several days).

In his honest opinion, he informed me that he much preferred this product to his usual fare of Fancy Feast.

The package of Trader Joe's Salmon Bacon:

The nutritional information:

Out of the package you get:

After being cooked you get:

Would I buy this again?  Nope. I had high hopes for this product and was disappointed. My cat did not share my disappointment and seemed enthralled about eating some of the leftovers. However, I'd recommend sticking with good old lox which is truthfully a better "bacon" than this is.

Want to see more items I've reviewed from Trader Joe's? Click on Thoughts & Reviews of Trader Joe's for a searchable list.

Did you try it? Let me know what you think in the comments section!