I’m going to show you something today that just might change your life. Do you avoid the whole bacon thing because you have to make a big greasy mess, have bacon oil splattered all over the place, and run the risk of scalding your forearms? Well let me show you a little trick where you can cook bacon and not have a single dirty dish. Really, not one! It’s so easy that you might just find yourself cooking bacon every day purely for the purpose of snacking on it. Errr…okay, maybe that’s just me. Pretend I didn’t say that.
You’re going to need your favorite bacon, a baking sheet, and some aluminum foil.
- Turn on your oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Use heavy duty if you have it. Lay out bacon slices in a single layer. They can be close together, just avoid overlap. You can also lay a metal cooling rack in your pan and lay the bacon on top of that. Personally I think it tastes way better when it cooks up in its own drippings!
2. You don’t need to wait for your oven to preheat. Place pan in the oven for about 12-15 minutes. Watch bacon after that and cook until desired level of crispiness. I like mine on the crispy side so I cook it for about 15-17 minutes. Cooking time depends on the thickness of the slice as well.
3. Immediately remove bacon from pan and place on paper towels to soak up grease.
Now you’ve still got that pan full of drippings. And I promised no mess and no dirty dishes. Don’t worry, I’m a woman of my word. Note that at this point, you could save the drippings if that’s your type of thing (and according to the comments it’s quite important to many of you!) Or…when your bacon has cooled take the paper towels it was draining on and place them right on the baking sheet. They’ll immediately start soaking up the grease so you don’t accidentally spill on yourself, and this way you don’t have to find something to pour the oily mess into.
Then take the foil and wrap it right up into itself until you have a little package to toss right in the garbage can.
And as long as you didn’t pierce any holes through the foil, your pan is completely clean! Now how easy is that? Plus, you have the best, crispest, flattest bacon, the bacon dreams are made of!
Back to baking. Baking bacon also results in nice flat pieces. Flat bacon comes in handy for stuff like Bacon-Pineapple Burgers and Egg Salad BLT’s
I especially love baking bacon when I need a whole bunch to crumble up and sprinkle on stuff like Chicken-Bacon Stuffed Pizza Rolls, Spinach Mandarin Poppyseed Salad, and Bacon & Blue Twice Baked Potatoes. You can be cooking the bacon in the oven while you prep the rest of the food so you don’t have to sit there and babysit a hot skillet.
Questions & Reviews
After you bake the bacon, can you freeze it? If you know you’re not gonna eat it up very quickly? I mean, one person can only eat so much bacon in a week. Thanks!
Well I’ve never had leftover bacon haha- but yes, pop it in the freezer!
I water down the bacon, I know sound weird but gives off more hickory or applewood flavor more and cook it in oven. Yum yum. We had BLT last night
Solely vacuum packed bacon freezes properly, for up to 2 months.
I make 2 pans at a time=1pound…but I do it on the gas grill outside (with the cover closed) and drain the pans once during baking off the deck in the grass
I put another piece of foil on top and put a glass pan on top and then you have flat pieces for sandwiches and easy to freeze.
You are right, bacon rules, no doubts. Do you think that it would be ok to use parchment paper instead of the aluminum foil? Or would it burn up in the oven?
In a pinch it would probably work, but I’ve never tried it.
In comment 52 above, she says she uses parchment paper with success.
I do this, but I still end up with bacon grease on the INSIDE of my oven – I find myself having to clean the entire oven after each bacon cooking – any tips for how to avoid this? Thanks!
Did you see Diana’s suggestion? Maybe try that. I’ve never had a problem with it splattering, so I’m not sure!
When I do my bacon in the oven I place paper towel on the foil then place just enough water to wet the paper towel. I then put a cooling rack on top of the paper towel with the bacon on top of the cooling rack. It keeps the grease from splattering and cooks the bacon with out drying it out. The paper towel soaks up the grease so there is no chance of a spill taking it out of the oven.
Question: Can you put more than one pan in the oven at the same time, or does it mess up the heat flow thing like it does with rolls? And really ,truly, is there NO mess in the (regular) oven? Or is it just a little mess in the oven. I’m a bit chicken after having flames come out of my toaster oven from not cleaning out my crumb tray in a timely fashion. Won’t do that again.
I’ve been doing this for a while now and it really is the best way to cook the bacon. Becky B, it does mess up the heat flow (for me at least). I usually have to cook the top pan around an extra 5 minutes. And yes, there really isn’t any mess in the oven so long as you don’t take it out too fast because the bacon isn’t cooking at so high a heat that the grease splatters like it does on the stove top.
Yeah! A girl after my own heart. Years ago my father-in-law said bacon was better cooked in a skillet and my sweet mother-in-law always wanted to please him and I thought they were both crazy since the microwave was faster and cleaner. However, I have become a oven cooked bacon convert. You really have to watch those last few minutes so be careful. It has the advantage of been the best texture and the easy clean up.