How to get crispy and chewy bacon? Cooking bacon in the oven is the easiest and smartest way to cook bacon strips! To perfection. No need to even fry your bacon because baked bacon is just as crispy, but less messy. Perfect splatter free bacon in 15 minutes! What a delicious way to prepare this American classic for breakfast, dinner and maybe even dessert!
How to cook bacon in the oven
- First things first, preheat oven to 375 F.
- Next, you will need to prepare a large baking sheet and line it with parchment paper or foil.
- Now lay bacon strips in a single layer on the baking sheet, but do not let the bacon strips overlap or they will stick together.
- Lastly, bake your bacon for 15 minutes, until crispy perfection and drain!
- To drain bacon fat, remove bacon strips from the baking sheet onto a plate. Now tilt the baking sheet to allow bacon fat to drain either into a garbage can or a storage container.
- You can also use paper towels, newspapers or a cutup brown paper bag for that.
Why cook bacon in the oven?
- The main reason to cook bacon in the oven is to minimize clean up. While cast iron pan is a classic choice for frying the bacon, it's so much easier to get rid of the bacon fat if you bake bacon and then just slide all the fat straight into the garbage or a container!
- Cooking bacon in the oven is perfect when cooking for a crowd! You can have two cooking sheets going at the same time.
- Bacon cooked in the oven equals NO bacon grease splatter. Anywhere! You don't have to clean the top of your stove! Isn't it great?
How long do you cook bacon?
I bake it for 15 minutes at 375°, until the bacon is crispy. Some cooks bake it at 400 F and I've done that too. However at 400 F, you want to check on your bacon at 10 minutes in order to avoid burning it in its own fat! Your bacon is also much more likely to produce a splatter inside your oven when cooking it at temperatures higher than 375 F.
Can you cook it at a lower temperature? Yes! I baked the bacon at 350F and it was crispy at this temperature as well, but it took longer to cook: 20-25 minutes at 350.
WHAT TO DO WITH BACON GREASE?
Even though some cooks save their bacon drippings, I've never done so because the bacon grease can go rancid and that's not something I am willing to risk. If you choose to keep bacon fat - pour it into a glass jar or metal can, and refrigerate.
How to store baked bacon
- First, you will need to cool the bacon off on a plate.
- Next place cooled bacon in a resealable plastic bag.
- You can store cooked bacon for up to one week in the refrigerator. To reheat refrigerated bacon, simply microwave it or add it to a hot pan to crisp. You can also chop it up to make it even crispier!
How to choose bacon in the store
I thought that it's a good idea to also share how to choose bacon in the supermarket because there are so many choices out there! Bacon is one of America's favorite breakfast foods. It's a cut of pork that is brined in a salt solution and then smoked. And of course there are many different types of bacon to choose from.
- The best bacon in your supermarket will be at the meat or deli counter. Packaged bacon needs to have a longer shelf life, so you are more likely to see more preservatives.
- Make sure to read the ingredients! Less ingredients will yield a higher quality bacon. Ideally, the ingredients list should not contain more than pork, salt, brown sugar, and water.
- Some like it cut thiner than others. In general, the thicker cuts will produce chewier bacon while the thiner cuts will produce crisper bacon. Look for a nice blend of meat and fat, with a little more meat than fat.
Delicious Bacon Recipes:
Creamy Brussels sprouts with Bacon and Mozzarella
Chicken Spinach and Bacon Alfredo
Oven Roasted Chicken Thighs with Bacon
Easiest way to bake bacon in the oven
Ingredients
- 8 strips bacon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Lay bacon in a single layer onto baking sheet, making sure not to overlap.
- Bake until crispy, 15 to 25 minutes
- Drain on a paper towel-lined plate and serve.
Shanon Caldwell says
Just a little PSA, my Grandmother always kept her bacon grease, in a grease keeper next to the stove and it never went rancid and no one died, lol. I inherited her grease keeper and it sits in the same place next to my stove and as is evident, I haven't died from using it either. I use my bacon grease too often for it to have a chance to turn bad and I suspect my Grandmother was the same. I love bacon baked (still use my cast iron pan for it, also inherited from my Granny) but I always save my grease. Apparently, it's such a commodity now that you can buy it on the grocery store shelves.
Olya says
Bacon grease, or another one of my favorites - tallow
Bill Knight says
You can still buy lard at some stores and it is close. That is what made McDonalds fries famous until the health nuts made them stop.
Olya says
I keep my lard in the tin cans or sometimes glass jars. Just from frying bacon.
Wendy says
That's my way of cooking bacon!