CBLT (Carrot “Bacon”lettuce & tomato) 🥕🥬🍅🍞

For a while now I’ve really wanted to try and make my own vegan “bacon”. I recently saw someone that had used banana peels. Then, I saw someone use eggplant. I wasn’t sold on either of those ideas. Finally, I came across an option that I could get behind- CARROT bacon. I watched the video and thought about the ingredients this woman was using. Then, I decided to just wing it and use some things I thought might work. These strips came out crispy, smoky, sweet and overall delicious! They paired amazing with this CBLT sandwich I made for lunch (carrot-bacon, lettuce, tomato). And, instead of using mayo, I made a healthier spread using blended avocado salt and olive oil. Here’s what I used to make my crispy carrot-bacon..

Carrot-Bacon Marinade

3 tbsp liquid smoke

3 tbsp soy sauce

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

3 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp Olive oil

1 tbsp turmeric

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp onion powder

Directions:

Take 3 large washed carrots. Cut both ends off. Use a mandolin to make strips with the carrots. You want them to be thin enough to crisp up, if they are too thick they will become soggy. I found that using a vegetable peeler just made the strips too thin and they would just burn.

In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients for the bacon marinade and whisk well.

Add the carrot strips into the bowl with the marinade. Make sure all of the carrots are coated well with the mixture. Cover and put in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

After the carrots have soaked up some of the marinade, Heat the oven to 300° F.

Spray a sheet pan with cooking spray and spread your carrot bacon strips on the sheet without any overlapping. Place the pan in the oven and cook for about 15 minutes or until you see the strips getting darker in color and starting to crisp up. if you want more well done style bacon keep them in longer.

Take the sheet pan out of the oven and place the strips onto a plate to cool. As they cool, they will continue to get crispy.

Put them on a sandwich of your choice, or crumble them up and use them in a salad for some extra crunch and smoky flavor! Really, you can use these strips as a substitute in any of your favorite dishes that call for bacon, it’s that good! 😋

For the sandwich:

I used an emulsion blender to make the avocado “mayo”. I added one avocado, a tsp of salt, and a tbsp of olive oil and blended until smooth. I toasted some thin sliced whole grain protein seed bread, spread my avocado “mayo” on both slices, sprinkled some black pepper then added my carrot bacon, lettuce and tomato. *Note: You will have leftover “mayo” so use it on another sandwich, or to keep from browning squeeze some lime juice and transfer to a container and store in the refrigerator for a day. If you don’t want this much “mayo” just use half of an avocado and a tsp of olive oil.