For an easy method of making lots of bacon, try baking it in the oven! It comes out perfectly crispy, and cleanup is a breeze.
Although we’ve been together for almost nine years now, my husband has started learning some concerning facts about me lately. I’ll never forget the look on his face a couple years ago when I revealed I’m not a big fan of bacon [GASP]. Okay, hear me out.
I love the flavor and smell of bacon, but the texture of the inevitably large amount of fat in each strip? It grosses me out. That’s why I tend to either donate my bacon to Matt, pick the fat off, or avoid it altogether. A major loophole I’ve discovered that helps me forget about this fatty texture problem is crispy bacon. When you cook bacon until the entire strip is crispy, there aren’t any weird rubbery fat stripes; it has a uniform texture.
In the past, my go-to method of cooking bacon has been either in the microwave between paper towels or in a skillet on the stove. That all changed when I discovered the perks of cooking bacon in the oven.
It might seem like an unnecessary change, but you’ve seriously got to try baking bacon. Here are the reasons why it’s so wonderful:
- You can cook a lot at once because you just fill up a baking sheet.
- It requires minimal effort because you don’t have to flip or monitor it as often.
- The fat doesn’t splatter or smoke (as long as you’re not cooking it too hot).
- Cleaning up the aftermath is extremely easy; you just throw away the aluminum foil.
- Most importantly (to me): it cooks quite evenly.
I cooked a bunch of bacon in the oven for us last weekend, and we enjoyed it for several days after. If you’re a BLT fan, I highly recommend using the baked bacon method for prepping lots of strips. It also works well if you’re serving several people and don’t want to deal with a high-maintenance cooking process.
If you want to do a bit of food prep ahead of time, you can use this cooking method to ensure you have leftover bacon for future breakfasts (if you’re fancy, Cheesy Bacon and Ham Quiche) or perhaps salads during the week (Pear, Bacon, and Goat Cheese Salad for the WIN). However you like your bacon, I encourage you to try making it in the oven!
Ingredients:
- Bacon strips
- Baking sheet
- Aluminum foil
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- Lay the desired number of bacon strips in a single layer across the lined baking sheet. Bake for 17-22 minutes, or until bacon are cooked to the desired level of doneness.
- Remove from oven and transfer the bacon strips to a plate lined with paper towels.
What’s your usual way of cooking bacon?
Are you a turkey bacon fan? Or a pork purist?
