Bacon Crackers

Move over, boring chips and dips! These oven-baked Bacon Crackers are the stars of the scene. Forget plain, boring rounds — we’re talking garlic and herb cheese smeared on buttery club crackers, then topped with bacon and brown sugar. The fat from the bacon renders into the cracker during baking, while the sugar candies the bacon. With just 5 ingredients and minimal prep, you’ll have these addictive bites whipped up fast. They’re ideal for game day, movie night, or any occasion where snacking is a must.

I am definitely a savory snack girl — as opposed to having a sweet tooth — and appetizers are right behind soup as my favorite meal. And with all of my decades of experience in eating snacks (yaass!), these Bacon Crackers are possibly the most delicious things I’ve ever had.

You look at them and think, oh, they have bacon, so I’ll just have 2 or 3. But then suddenly you realize you’ve inhaled 6, and you’re still not ready to stop just yet.

Yes, they are that good. Because it’s not just bacon dropped on a cracker. It’s bacon baked into the cracker: The cracker absorbs the melting bacon fat and is completely infused with its essence. I can’t begin to adequately describe the effect here. Rich and salty and savory and amazing.

To gild the lily, the bacon is topped with a little brown sugar before popping into the oven, and while the bacon fat is melting into the cracker, the sugar is melting into the bacon. And what you have left is candied bacon. On a buttery, bacony cracker. With herby cheese.

I just can’t. So, let’s not wade through any more words and get right to all the deets and all the tempting photos.

Ingredients Notes & Substitutions

Club crackers — Technically, you can use just about any sturdy cracker, but the classic rectangular club cracker means that a piece of bacon fits perfectly on top, edge to edge, and their angular shape means they can fill a baking sheet without wasted space. It’s also sort of mathematically perfect, too, as you can slice a strip of bacon into thirds, and it will fit both width and lengthwise. Plus the buttery flavor complements the bacon very well.

Bacon — Usually, more is better, right? But in this case, I highly recommend using just regular bacon, as opposed to thick-cut bacon. It’s all about timing: You want the bacon to cook completely and crisp up without everything being in the oven so long that the crackers burn. Thick-cut bacon, imo, takes too long to cook.

Can you use turkey bacon? Well, yes, but, the real beauty of the bacon crackers is that the bacon fat actually melts right into the cracker, and flavors the cracker, and helps the bacon grip the cracker. Turkey bacon is wonderfully lean, and there’s just not enough fat to do either of these things.

Boursin — This tasty, garlicky cheese spread is my addition to this famous snack cracker masterpiece. Just a swipe down the center, leaving the edges of the cracker bare to catch the bacon fat, adds a noticeable rich, herby flavor. Optional but recommended!

This is also where you can get the kids involved in a sort of production line: They can spread on the cheese while you top with bacon.

Brown sugar — Just a light coating of brown sugar is called for here. The sugar will melt into the bacon, giving a candied, sweet-savory effect to the bacon. Completely irresistible. You can use dark or light brown sugar.

Hot honey chili crisp — Absolutely optional and not really part of today’s recipe, I have to nonetheless highly recommend it. As you’ll see in the step photos below, I tested a drizzle of the chili crisp on a few crackers. Amazing. Addictive. All the good superlatives. I use Momofuku’s Hot Honey Chili Crisp. It’s sort of unacceptably expensive lol and also crazy CRAZY good. It’s a delicious complement to bacon crackers.

How to Make Bacon Crackers

Here’s an overview of the process for making Bacon Crackers, with photos. Don’t forget to review the full recipe card below before starting to ensure you have all of the ingredients prepared, along with full details for each step.

Step 1: Prepare everything

Line a half-sheet baking pan with foil or a silicon mat. Place an oven-safe wire rack on the baking sheet. Preheat your oven to 275ºF.

Remove the crackers from their plastic wrap — note that about 36 crackers will fit on a half-sheet wire rack. You can do a double batch on two pans.

Using a knife or kitchen shears, cut bacon strips into three equal pieces. You’ll need about 12 strips of bacon for 36 crackers.

Step 2: Add toppings to the crackers

Spread a thin swipe of the garlic cheese spread down the center of the cracker. Add one piece of bacon on top, pressing down lightly to adhere to the cheese. Then sprinkle a pinch of brown sugar over the bacon.

Place the cracker on the wire rack. Continue with the remaining crackers, lining everything up to fit, with a little bit of space between each.

Step 3: Bake the crackers

Carefully place the pan in the oven, and let bake for an hour. When the bacon has crisped up, remove from the oven. Use a fork or spatula to give each cracker a little nudge, to make sure it’s not sticking the rack.

Let cook to a handling temperature — this will only take 10 minutes or so — and serve. Once the crackers have cooled and “hardened” up a bit — they’ll come out of the oven a little soft and fragile — you can stack them on top of each other (i.e., serve them in a bowl, or heaped on a platter).

Cook’s Notes

• A quick note about the photos here: I have a mish-mash of old equipment, and my largest wire rack does not quite fit into my half sheets; it’s just a hair too large and sits tilted in the pan. So, in the photos I’ve used a large baking pan with a smaller wire rack. Today, it’s quite easy to find a sheet pan with a fitted wire rack set, and I recommend this for a wide variety of cooking projects. Very convenient to have on hand (she says to herself)!
• Why use a wire rack? The texture of Bacon Crackers benefits greatly from being elevated during baking, allowing airflow around and beneath the crackers. This also prevents the crackers from sitting in pools of bacon grease, which would make them soft.
• The total number of finished crackers doesn’t really matter here: You can make a small batch or a large batch. Or a double batch! As long as you have enough toppings for your crackers, that’s all that matters. The recipe below is for 36 crackers, which will fit lined up neatly on a half-sheet baking sheet.
• One thing to note is that these crackers don’t store particularly well and are best eaten fresh in one sitting. I know, right, lol? The fat-soaked crackers get sort of weird and almost stale when stored in a bag or a container. So, I don’t recommend making them a day ahead, although an hour or so ahead should be fine.
• Note that the crackers do contain cooked bacon and should not be left at room temperature for more than 2 hours. You’ll read folk wisdom that claims cooked bacon can be left at room temp for days, but the USDA puts the limit at 2 hours.
• As mentioned above, this is a great project to get the kids involved in. They can definitely help spread the cheese on the crackers with a butter knife (i.e., a dull knife). And if they break a few crackers, so what, it’s just crackers! They can also sprinkle on the brown sugar, if you don’t want them handling raw bacon.

As a food blogger, it’s always tempting to describe a recipe with a lot of over-excited adjectives — Delicious! Tasty! Scrumptious! — because, let’s face it, we want to convince others to try what we cook.

But, I have to say, of all the hundreds and hundreds of recipes on this site, these Bacon Crackers are truly … addictive. And I don’t use that word lightly, because of its cultural weight.

I made a small batch for photographing here, and despite my instructions to keep the paws off because I do, after all, need something left to take pictures of, the peeps could not stop nibbling:

So, instead of a platter of crackers like I had envisioned, I had a mere plateful lol.

So be warned: It’s very, very easy to plow through the entire batch. And don’t forget, if your crowd loves a little spice in their food, drizzle that hot honey chili crisp over some of the crackers before baking. Next level delicious!

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5 from 4 votes

Bacon Crackers

Take everyday crackers to epic levels with this simple recipe! Buttery crackers, infused with the irresistible flavor of melted bacon fat and caramelized brown sugar. These Bacon Crackers with Boursin are the ultimate crowd-pleaser, perfect for parties, game days, or just satisfying your sweet-and-savory cravings.

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Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr

Total Time1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American

Keyword: bacon crackers

Servings: 8

Author: Karen Gibson

Ingredients

• 36 club crackers* (such as Kellogg Club Crackers)
• 5 ounces garlic & herb cheese spread , such as Boursin
• 12 strips of uncooked regular bacon , cut to fit the length of the crackers
• brown sugar

Equipment

• 1 Half-sheet baking pan with wire rack set

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 275ºF and line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper (optional, for easy cleanup). Place an oven-proof wire rack in the baking sheet, making sure its sits levelly.
• Spread the cheese spread on each of the crackers. It really only needs to be a thin swipe down the center, as leaving some of the cracker top exposed will allow the cracker to absorb the bacon fat as it cooks.
• Lay a cut piece of bacon on top of the cheese spread, pressing down lightly to adhere the bacon to the cracker.
• Sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar on the bacon slice to cover, but not too thickly.
• Place all of the topped crackers on the wire rack. They can be spaced closely together to fit as many as possible.
• Bake for an hour, ensuring that the bacon is cooked through.
• Remove from the oven. Immediately give each cracker a little nudge to ensure it isn’t sticking to the wire rack, as the crackers may be a little soft and fragile while they’re hot. Let cool to a handling temperature; it just takes a few minutes.

Notes

* If you’re using the classic rectangular club crackers and regular bacon, the bacon strips will fit perfectly on top, width-wise. Cut the strips to match the length of the cracker — about a third of each strip — and you’re good to go. If you can help it, don’t use thick-cut bacon, as it takes too long to cook through and the crackers might burn.

Nutritional information, if shown, is provided as a courtesy only, and is not to be taken as medical information or advice. The nutritional values of your preparation of this recipe are impacted by several factors, including, but not limited to, the ingredient brands you use, any substitutions or measurement changes you make, and measuring accuracy.