There are so many food choices in the marketplace today, a shopper might need an excel spreadsheet to make simple decisions like Coke or Pepsi just based on the volume of varieties. Apparently, breakfast meats are no exception…

Johnsonville has a new item on shelves called sausage strips – chorizo, jalapeño, maple and original. The advertising for it suggests that it’s a rival for bacon and also suggests a majority of consumers polled prefer them to bacon…

Let’s discuss bacon for a moment…

I have met few people who don’t love bacon. It’s one of the few meats that has been successfully used in just about everything. Cupcakes, milkshakes, donuts… baked goods and entrees… successfully. So beating bacon is a lofty goal. I decided to take on the challenge…

Let’s discuss sausage for a moment…

Sausage has soooo many more variations than bacon. So we can confine this comparison to breakfast sausages, specifically links or patties. I have trouble comparing the two because they are so different, but, I understand from where the sausage industry might be working.

As a matter of popularity, bacon is the winner. The sausage industry wants to capitalize on the popularity of bacon by introducing a bacon-like option. Marketing.

But as I researched this battle, I came across poll after poll citing sausage as most consumed. However, this included all forms of sausage, one even cited hot dogs in the sausage category. Not an equal comparison. So let’s take it back to traditional breakfast meats, links and patties only and taste test them outright…

The way sausage is made is completely different than how bacon is cut. So sausage doesn’t cook the same way either. With exception of patties, sausage doesn’t get crispy like bacon. The sausage strips did not get crispy like bacon. It also didn’t taste like bacon, but, it didn’t taste as satisfying as traditional links or patties either.

This is a perfect example of letting sausage be sausage and letting bacon be bacon and neither shall the twain meet.

Johnsonville Sausage Strips are not better than bacon. Try then if you’re curious like I was and decide for yourself, but don’t expect much… disappointment may follow.