Welcome to BENSA, the largest community of bacon enthusiasts in North America. If you love bacon, you’ve come to the right place!
B.E.N.S.A. is an acronym for Bacon Enthusiasts ‘N Swine Aficionados.
Our name was also chosen because it rhymes nicely with Mensa, the international organization for smart people with high IQs. But unlike Mensa, BENSA accepts bacon-loving members of all intelligence levels!
About Eliza Cross
BENSA was founded by bacon expert Eliza Cross, author of 17 cookbooks. She wrote three bacon cookbooks including Bacon Beans and Beer, winner of the 2018 Eating the West Award from the Mountain and Plains Independent Booksellers Association.
She also wrote 101 Things to Do With Bacon, which has sold more than 60,000 copies and was recently re-released, and the popular sequel 101 More Things to Do With Bacon.
Eliza is an E.A.T. Certified Food Judge who has judged numerous culinary events, including the World Food Championships, Gulf Coast Beer and Bacon Festival, Bacon and Beer Classic, Chicken Fight! fried chicken festival, Top Taco and others.
She has been featured by publications like USA Today, Men’s Health, and Forbes, and her media appearances include Denver’s CBS-4, ABC-TV in Phoenix, Wisconsin Public Radio’s Central Time, and the Clear Channel’s Focus show.
Eliza is also the owner of Cross Media, Inc. and the popular lifestyle blog Happy Simple Living.
The Greater BENSA Community
BENSA celebrates artisan bacon makers, restaurants, chefs, grillers, bloggers, home cooks and eaters who are crazy for bacon and think it deserves its own food group.
We showcase many makers, cooks and delectable bacon offerings on our Instagram page. We also have a private Bacon Recipes Group you can join, if you enjoy sharing and discovering creative ways to cook bacon.
We applaud pork producers who raise their animals humanely, and support organizations like Slow Food.
BENSA also proudly supports World Central Kitchen, Mississippi Heroes and BACON for Hope.
If you love the savory, smoky flavor of great bacon, we hope you’ll consider BENSA your home.
About the Recipes on this Site
Here at the BENSA test kitchen in Denver, Colorado, Eliza personally tests and re-tests each recipe until it’s just perfect and easy for home cooks to duplicate.
Then a trusted stable of friends, neighbors, family members and bacon-loving testers taste the recipes and provide feedback. Only the best recipes highlighting the incomparable flavor of BACON are eventually featured on this site.
Complete step-by-step directions, photos of each process, and photos of the finished dish are always included, along with notes about ingredients, substitutions, variations, and the equipment you’ll need to prepare each dish. A printable recipe card can be found near the bottom of each recipe post.
Reader reviews and comments are always encouraged, providing you with additional information about what to expect when preparing our recipes.
Be sure to check out our current Top 10 most popular bacon recipes and posts:
This site contains affiliate links, and we may earn a small commission if you purchase through those links. We only recommend products we personally like and use. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Review our disclosure page for more information.
