You know what the problem with bacon is? Absolutely nothing.
It’s a delicious, highly nutritious addition to any man’s breakfast. There’s truly nothing finer than the taste of thinly sliced dead pig.
But you know what? Cooking bacon is kind of annoying. If you want it to taste good, you need to just stand there over a hot pan twirling the stuff around until you think it might possibly be the right level of crispy, which is hard to tell because it’s covered in a thick layer of glistening bacon fat.
I know, first world problems.
The Joys of Baked Bacon
Now, I’m not just here to complain, I’m here to provide solutions as well. Thanks to Gina, I’ve discovered a much better way to make bacon: baking it in the oven.
Here’s what you need:
- baking sheet
- cooling rack
- bacon
After that, you’ll need to…
- Place cooling rack on backing sheet
- Place bacon on cooling sheet
- Wait about 18 minutes
To put this another way, bake the bacon for about 18 minutes at 350F.
You don’t need to use a cooling rack – you could just lay the bacon flat on the baking sheet – but the benefit of using a cooling rack is that all the bacon fat drips into the baking sheet. You’ll get bacon that’s just the right amount of crisp, and the bacon fat can be disposed of easily, or kept for making scrambled eggs.
Depending on your oven, you’ll need to vary the time and temperature. I’ve found that the bacon tastes perfect after about 18 minutes at 350F, but depending on whether you want it crispier or softer, you can adjust the time. It just takes a bit of experimentation.
I mean look at this, does this baked bacon not look delicious? I promise you, you’ve never tried bacon this good before.
When you roll out of bed this weekend, make yourself and a special friend… a girlfriend, your best pal, even the dog… some delicious baked bacon, and let me know what you thought of it! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I think the process is pretty straight forward, but you never know.
A couple of additional tips.
Get some parchment paper to line the cookie sheet. Why? Two words – easy cleanup. You can still harvest the yummy bacon grease for your eggs or you can just let it cool, fold up the paper and toss in the trash. The best buy for parchment paper is the big roll from Costco.
Watch your bacon. Depending on your oven you may want to turn the cookie sheet 180 degrees half way through the process to attain even cooking.
If you have access to a convection oven, give it a try. Cooking times will differ (usually shorter) and you may not have to rotate your bacon.