How to Cook Perfect Bacon Every time
Cooking bacon on the stovetop using the traditional method is a pain, the grease splatters, it seems as though it takes forever. However, there are a couple of tricks that will ensure you have perfect tender-crisp bacon, whether you choose to bake or fry!
Here’s a great tip that I picked up while working in a restaurant as a teen to make perfectly cooked bacon every time, with no messy clean-up! It’s my favorite method, particularly since we tend to cook several pounds of bacon at once.
How to Bake Bacon Perfectly
There are so many reasons that cooking bacon in the oven makes it the best method for achieving perfect bacon. The bacon cooks evenly, without splattering grease. The strips remain nice and straight, they don’t curl up. Several pans can be cooked at a time, which is wonderful if you’re feeding a large family. Probably the best part is that you’re completely free to do other things while the bacon cooks, you don’t have to babysit it or turn it over.
You’ll notice that the baking time varies considerably from 12-17 minutes, due to the thickness of the bacon and the level of crispness that you personally desire.
First, preheat the oven to 400°F
While it is preheating, place a sheet of parchment paper on a large cookie sheet (with a minimum of 1-inch sides). If you don’t have parchment paper you can line the cookie sheet with tin foil instead. I prefer parchment paper over the foil for several reasons:
- As the bacon crisps, it will not stick to the parchment paper, making it easy to remove from the pan.
- The parchment paper prevents the pan from getting greasy, ensuring clean-up will be quick and painless.
- Â Parchment paper is very inexpensive and environmentally friendly.
Lay out the bacon in strips very close together, but not overlapping. Bake for 12-17 minutes, or until bacon is perfectly browned to your liking.
Immediately transfer the hot, crispy bacon onto a plate lined with paper towels to drain off any residual grease.
Once the bacon has been removed, I very carefully tip the pan to allow the fat to drain off into a ceramic coffee mug (to be reserved for later use!).
Let the pans cool, toss out the parchment paper or tin foil and voila, mess-free, perfectly cooked crispy bacon. This works great if you want quick breakfasts in the morning, you can reheat the bacon in a small frying pan or in the microwave for about 15 seconds. Crisp and tasty!
How to Fry Bacon Perfectly
If you’re more of a traditionalist (or maybe you’re camping and don’t have an oven!), here’s how to cook bacon in a skillet to achieve the perfect crisp and tender texture instead of dry and crumbly.
The trick that really makes the difference is allowing the bacon to come to room temperature first. Then lay the strips in a cold skillet, side by side. Cover with water.
Turn on the heat setting to high. Once the water reaches boiling, reduce the heat to medium. Once all the water has simmered away, reduce the heat to medium-low and continue cooking until the bacon is crisp and well browned.
Drain on a plate lined with paper towels.
The reason this works so well is that by the time the water reaches its boiling point of 212°F the fat in the bacon is completely rendered, which helps prevent the meat from burning (while you’re waiting for the fat to cook off).
The resulting bacon is plump and crisp, rather than tough or brittle.
what an awesome idea. no fuss, no muss. :springsmile:
thank you,
edna
gosh, what a great idea. thanks
i do this same thing and let me tell you the clean up is so much easier. i love not having to wipe the grease up off the stove from the splatter.
i’ve done this before but dredged the bacon in brn sugar and cinnamon first. mmmmm taste like candy.
I’ve never thought of doing that, ds is a bacon hound and would eat an entire pound by himself if I allowed it. During the holidays we got him chocolate covered bacon- he was ecstatic!
i never buy my bacon any less then 10 lbs. I Jokingly tell people we butter our bread with bacon grease but I had never cooked it in the oven and never put brown sugar and cinnamon on it.Well,I have now and LOVE it! Now just trying to figure what the grease off the sugar and cinnamon bacon could be used for………
When I was a kid I found a recipe in a “depression” era cookbook for Bacon fat Cookies. They were delicious little ginger cookies –
Bacon-Fat Ginger Cookies
Mix together in a large bowl:
3/4 cup bacon fat, cooled & solidified
1 cup sugar
4 Tablespoons molasses
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Chill dough for a few hours in the fridge.
Roll into balls, press gently with a fork sprinkle with sugar.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 10 minutes, until dark and ginger snappy. OMG they are GOOD!
Oh, and here’s my favorite recipe for Bacon Fat Mayonnaise, – it’s like eating a Spreadable BLT.
You’ll Need:
* 5 egg yolks
* 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
* 7 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
* 1 1/4 cups rendered bacon fat, (chilled & Solid)
* 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
* Freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper to taste
Put the egg yolks, mustard, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice the into mixing bowl beating on high for 2 minutes, until well blended.
Add the bacon fat , continuing to beat until the mixture is thick.
Blend in the remaining lemon juice, adding a little at a time, sea salt and pepper, whipping it pretty much continuously, (the same way you would if you were making meringue).
Adjust the seasoning to taste- you may not need to add ANY salt.
The mayonnaise keeps for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator.
Definitely going to try this, but can you tell me what tellicherry black pepper is?
i love love love this method. it lets me have bacon all week for blts or club sandwiches, or whatever, plus it is so much easier to clean up and the yummyness of having bacon fat to cook with too:cloud9:
love this method & the little clean up. thank you.
i’ve done this with the bacon on top of cooling racks placed on top of the cookie sheet. not much grease left on the bacon, but still really good. works for turkey bacon also.
will have to try the c&s next time.
i cook my bacon in the oven as well, but if you would like to avoid it cooking in a lot of grease, place a cookie cooling rack on to of the foil and place bacon on that. i use exact directions above for the exception i use cookie rack so bacon fat drips to bottom. i use the method to bake fries and onion rings, cookie cooling racks are not just for cookies anymore.
i’ve been doing this for awhile now and love it! i put a cooling rack on top the foil and then put the bacon on top….bacon automatically drained :). one caution however…make sure your cookie sheet is a heavier metal and not warped.
made bacon this way a couple of weeks ago and my cookie sheet was older thin metal that had warped. when i pulled it out of the over, the pan buckled and the hot grease went up my arm and on my hand giving me 2nd degree burns. Needless to say I threw that pan away and bought me a new heavy metal cookie sheet.
use this method all the time, love it. no more messy grease spatters on the stove-top.
i’ve tried this and it is fast easy and minimal mess. the bacon comes out perfectly crispy just like a restaurant
i love depression era cooking recipe’s
i can’t wait to implement this new idea 🙂 i hate babysitting bacon :d
love this idea! can’t wait to try it
Wouldn’t that just be transferring the mess from the stovetop to the oven? I wonder if you could cover it with tinfoil or something so it doesn’t pop in the oven.
Does it still pop in the oven?