When Kraft came out with two new Philadelphia Cream Cheese flavors last year, Spicy Jalapeño and Chipotle, I was over the moon. Not a fan of sweet cream cheese flavors and immensely bored with the other savory options, I was hoping they would be the answer to my prayers.
And they were! They were fabulous flavors, and I continue to consume them to this day. They’re pretty much the only cream cheese flavors that have graced my bagels since.
But now Philadelphia has a new savory flavor: Bacon. Which leads me to say something I never thought I’d say – I’m tired of bacon.
Please, put down your Internet weapons! And by that I mean, your comments. Listen, I love bacon. I will always love bacon. But you can’t just throw bacon into everything. I mean, you can, but that doesn’t mean you should. Bacon mints. Bacon gum. Devices that will turn bacon into a cup.
Okay, if somebody offered me a bacon cup, I can’t say I’d turn it down. But people are just baconing for the sake of bacon, these days. The Internet is beating a dead pig.
Of course, after all this bitching and moaning, here I am, reviewing bacon cream cheese. Does this qualify as bacon for the sake of bacon? Quite possibly. On the other hand, I am happy to see another savory flavor offering on the shelves. Hey, if it tastes good, it tastes good. I’m not going to complain just to sound too cool for bacon.
The package says this cream cheese is made with real bacon and shows tantalizing strips of bacon on it, but upon inspection of the ingredients, it contains, more specifically, “bacon bits”. While these still technically qualify as bacon, I was highly disappointed upon reading this.
My trepidation only grew as I opened the package. Ignore the yellow fluid – that just happens with cream cheese. What really got me was that there were no visible chunks of bacon; just little black flecks on the surface.
My first bite confirmed my fears and suspicions. The cream cheese had a very fake-tasting bacon flavor to it; if you’ve ever had a sour cream-based jarred bacon dip, it’s similar to that flavor. I attribute this to the liquid smoke used, presumably to “enhance” your flavor experience.
The bacon bits are, well, bacon bits. Big enough that there’s a noticeable change in texture, but not big enough for your mouth to actually register it as bacon. Basically, just the right size for getting stuck in your teeth and being annoying.
Despite all this negativity, I continued to eat the stuff. Ugh, this always happens. I blame it on the cream cheese, which I love so very much. I’ll keep eating cream cheese even if whatever it’s flavored with is sub-par.
If I were to recommend this cream cheese at all, I’d recommend it more as a cracker dip than a bagel spread. That said, I can’t in good faith recommend it for anything. The cream cheese itself is so fakony in flavor, tasting mostly like liquid smoke and sadness, and the bacon bits are small and “real” only in the vaguest of terms.
I guess if you enjoy that faux-bacon flavor, then you’d enjoy Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese. For me, this was a disappointing addition to the savory Philadelphia line, and it will not be gracing my fridge shelves again. I’m sticking with my Spicy Jalapeño and Chipotle, which both taste like and contain said ingredients.
Kraft Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese
- Score: 1 out of 5 bacon bits stuck in my teeth
- Price: $2.49
- Size: 8 oz. tub
- Purchased at: Fry’s Food
- Nutritional Quirks: “Rendered bacon fat” is listed as an ingredient, which sounds gross, but I wish I could taste rendered bacon fat in this.
I just bought this stuff yesterday to put atop my Lender’s onion bagels. Having opened it only minutes ago, I quickly slathered it onto my toasty bagel and took a big bite. My initial reaction was “it’s okay”. Then, a moment later, I detected an off-tasting flavor. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, but it sort of reminded me of oregano or some other kind of herb. Not pleasant. I had a co-worker try it and she, too, did not like it. Two thumbs down. It just tastes “off.” Philadelphia, I expected better from you.
Omg I can’t believe nobody likes the cream cheese with bacon. What I do is make a bagel scramble some eggs put the cream cheese on top of the bagel with the eggs taste so good that way especially if you put bacon on top of the eggs omg heaven
After seeing the product in the store for a while, I finally caved in on buying it. I agree that the bacon craze has gotten way out of hand, and the biggest problem with it is that most “bacon” products taste synthetic and gross. I got duped by the “made with real bacon!” announcement on the tub and was pretty disappointed by the flavor. It’s not horrendous and I’ll eventually finish the tub, but it’s not something I’ll buy again. Much like how anything “grape flavored” never tastes like an actual grape but over the years we’ve grown accustomed to it as the norm, “bacon flavored” is an equally manufactured taste that I think is getting more prevalent and more accepted. You can tell what it’s supposed to be, and for many that’s close enough, but in the wrong context it can be pretty awful. In this instance, maybe it’s a texture thing as well as taste… if the product had larger bits to give some crunch, it might be more successful; however, bacon in a creamy, spreadable form just seems kinda wrong.
For many people, if you as them what they think “grape flavored” Kool-aid tastes like, they’d probably reply, “it tastes like purple.” It’s sad to think that people’s response to what “bacon flavored” tastes like might soon be, “tannish-pink and fake smoke.”
Man, you are correct Rob, that last sentence was downright depressing!
Kraft did such a great job with their jalapeño cream cheese, which has noticeable and very tasty pepper chunks in it, that I feel as though they should have done the same with this flavor. My only thoughts against this are either that you can’t get fresh bacon chunks to stay fresh in cream cheese, or the cost was prohibitive. Either way, they should have just kept it off the shelves.