Yea sure. Really all you need to do is put it on a pan and throw it in the oven. 450 maybe, for a nice crunch? The bacon will be done before the sausages so keep an eye on it. Also, spray the pan first to avoid any possible sticking.

My wife and I cook bacon on a rack in a baking sheet. 20-25 minutes, 400 degrees, and it's done. Make sure that you leave adequate space for airflow around the bacon (in other words, don't crowd).

The other option is to poach the sausage the day before and heat it through in the oven in the morning. :)

I'm a fan of bacon. I cook all my bacon in the oven.

Use a cookie sheet with a cookie cooling rack on top of it. Lay the bacon on it, and put it in a the oven. The temperate and time really depends on your preferences. If you like your bacon and crispy, use a higher setting for a shorter time (like 350 for 35 minutes). If you prefer your bacon softer with melt-in-your-mouth fat, cook it at a lower temperature for a longer duration (say 250 for an hour and a half or something, I'm still kind of new at that, but I like it more!).

By using a cookie cooling rack, you elevate your bacon above the fat and let it drain. If using the bacon as a snack, some nice aged cheddar goes well with it.

I always cook bacon in the oven now as well. I do the pan with a cooling rack on top, so the bacon fat drips down and just becomes crispy. It cooks the bacon very evenly, and is easy to free up burners and have it all done at once when cooking for a crowd!

I do bacon in the oven all the time when hosting brunch - 400 degrees for 15-25 mins., depending on the thickness of the bacon. I will usually put it in first thing, and then rewarm shortly before guests arrive. I will say that I have tried both the cooling rack over baking sheet and regular baking sheet method, and have noticed zero difference in how the bacon turns out, so in the interest of minimizing the number of large items I have to wash before guests arrive, I just use a regular baking sheet. If you cook it on a regular baking sheet (I cover mine with heavy duty tin foil for easy clean up), just pat and drain the bacon on a paper towel lined plate.

I just discovered cooking bacon in the oven, and I'm now face-palming all of the years that I'd spent burning myself on spattering grease and babysitting it over a hot stovetop.

It's so much easier to do larger batches, it all is done at the same time, and it's uniformly crispy.

I just throw bacon onto the pan (like the other commenters have mentioned, don't overcrowd the pan or overlap them - then they won't cook evenly) and toss it in at 350 for 15 minutes or so. I usually let it cook for 15 minutes, and then check every 5 minutes after, given that bacon goes from delicious to burnt in not too much time.

Sausage ought to be similarly simple - just toss it in the oven with the bacon and check on it every so often until it reaches the level of done-ness that you're going for. You can mostly sit back and enjoy your mimosas!

Whip your cream cheese and add a little bit of green food coloring while doing so! and maybe instead of cookies (or along side) you could make Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting - a bakery I frequent a little too often does Irish Car Bomb cupcakes for March that are amazing! - this recipe looks pretty straight forward and can be made the day before - http://nookandpantry.blogspot.com/2009/02/guinness-chocolate-cupcake-with-baileys.html

All, this is Kristin, the one with the sausage/bacon/oven issue. Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I'm glad I will not have to splatter myself and everyone around me with bacon grease.

Christine M - when you say poach the sausage, what do you mean? Sorry, I'm a novice. I plan on buying some plain old Bob Evans stuff at the grocery store so maybe I can just stick it in the oven the morning of and let it do its thing.

Thanks again everyone!

That's one of the local sausage maker that gave me that cooking method and I love it.

To ensure that sausage is cooked through and juicy (the trick works with any uncooked sausage), bring about 2 inches of water to a boil in a large pot (depending on the amount of sausage). Add the sauge, bring down to a simmer and let the sausage cook in water for 5 to 10 minutes (depending on how thick your sausage is). Take it out of the water and put in on a couple of paper towels (be careful not to pierce the casing!). The sausage is cooked and juicy! You can then fryj or grill it to give it a gorgeous golden colour and some crisp or, in your case, you could store it in the fridge until brunch morning comes and re-warm them in the oven while the bacon cooks. Hope this helps!

One of the best (and easiest) brunch recipes I have found is the Creme Brulee French Toast http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Creme-Brulee-French-Toast-15213 . I sub the corn syrup for real maple syrup and I use fresh challah (egg) bread. You make it the night before and refrigerate, so all you do in the morning is let it come to room temp and then bake for around 45 minutes. I get rave reviews and recipe requests every time. It goes perfectly with salty bacon and sausage. Even made a gluten-free version for one relative using GF bread and she said it was the best GF thing she had ever eaten!

I once cooked 7 pounds of bacon in the oven for a large group. It cooked in much less time than on the stove top and it was uniformly cooked as well. Easy and tasty, what could be better?

I cook all my bacon for a large brunch in the oven the day before, refigerate overnight and then warm it up slowly on a rack in the oven the next morning, usually the same time as a strata or quiche. One less messy thing to deal with while entertaining.

yes! in fact, cook's illustrated recommends using the oven for the best way to make bacon. i recently wrote a post about this, extolling the wonders of oven baked bacon. you can cook it anywhere between 375 and 400 F (depending on what else you have in the oven at the same time. Cleanup is as easy as pouring the grease off your pan - no scrubbing! I can usually fit about a pound of bacon on each cooking sheet.

Yes, to both. I'm assuming you are using breakfast sausages which are usually cooked already. You just need to reheat in the oven. If not, I would cook it the night before and then just reheat the next day in the hot oven after the bacon cooking.

Bacon in the oven and the microwave are the best since there's very little mess to clean up and no shotting grease.

When I catered for a crowd who wanted sausage, I always did it ahead like this....
Brown your sausage patties on both sides, top each patty with about 1/3 tsp brown sugar, add enough apple juice to come 1/2 way up the side of the patty. Cover and simmer until just done. Remove from heat and cool and refrigerate. Next day just heat with a little apple juice. The sausage stays nice and moist and the juice and brown sugar carmalizes the patty for a glossy finish.

We also just recent discovered cooking bacon in the oven and I love it. You do have to watch it if you're unsure of your oven temperature/tilt. For whatever reason, the back of my oven is hotter and there is a slight angle forward that is just steep enough to cause the fat to pool towards the front of the fan, leaving the guys in the back with no protection. We burnt the back half before the front half was completely done.

Definitely looking forward to trying poached sausage AND slow cooked bacon. Yum!

I always cook mine in the oven. It minimizes clean-up and I don't fiddle with it as much as I do in a pan. To avoid the uneven cooking, I do 400 with the convection fan going.

I've cooked bacon in the oven many times. I'm not sure if my oven cooks much faster then other posters here, but at 400 for 15 mins and it's crispy...anything longer and you're looking at charcoal bacon.

The oven is my favorite way to cook bacon... WAY less smoke in the house, and my hair doesn't smell like bacon for the rest of the day. I use aluminum on a cookie sheet (wasteful I know, but I can't stand cleaning up bacon fat) at 400 for about 20 mins (I like crispy bacon)

This is great - I had no idea oven bacon was so easy! Now I feel guilty about my crappy store-bought supermarket cookies. Aninhas, I think I'm going to have to make those Guinness cupcakes.

I don't mean to be the jerk, but wouldn't a simple search have revealed the answer to this question?

Yeah, I guess it would CCINCA but I couldn't find much information on cooking sausage.

When I'm hosting a brunch I always cook bacon and sausages in the oven, the evening before my brunch. You then put them in 2 containers lined with paper towels and put them in the fridge overnight. You then can make your oven omelet (I do oven french toasts) in the oven in the morning, when everything is ready and I don't need my oven to cook anymore, I reheat everything in the oven. If the oven is too crowded, I reheat my bacon in the microwave (not too long!).

I find that you can really cook anything you want for a crowd - it's all about timing.

Heck yeah, we do it all the time. But we put ours on a broiler pan with a drip pan beneath it (spray both with Pam first) so the bacon isn't so greasy.

I am Irish, born and raised. I can also confirm that you can certainly cook bacon in the oven.

What's more, at home we fry eggs in the oven! Preheat a baking sheet (in the oven that's already cooking the sausages and rashers) and crack the egg onto it. The tray must be on the floor of the oven and yes, it takes some getting used to...

Like the others here, I find that bacon in the oven is the only way to go. Line the pan with foil, don't overcrowd the pan and cook it to your desired level of crispness.

Also, Lando's comment on the creme brulee french toast is spot on-I make that on holiday mornings and for other special occassions and everyone always raves about it. It's easy, can be done ahead of time and tastes great-what more can you ask for?

Have fun!

I know that in the UK they generally cook bacon under the grill, which is basically a broiler that they've moved to be independent of the oven (its basically like a tray that hangs over the range, with a little ceiling full of holes for gas to come through that, when lit, makes a little wall of flame above the food). I'm not sure you would really need a recipe for this any more than you'd need one for making bacon the normal way. Just put the bacon under the broiler, keep an eye on it, and flip when necessary.

Also, if it is a St. Patty's day lunch, I recommend making back bacon instead of streaky bacon. It makes for a more authentic Irish bacon experience, plus it has less fat.

For the something sweet - I am not a big fan of the Pioneer Woman, but her cinnamon roll recipe is awesome AND can be made ahead - you make them, bake them, and frost them, then freeze and just reheat. People go crazy for them. They are a little bit of a time commitment to make, but you could do them this weekend and be all set. Or, for a lesser time commitment, you could make and freeze cream scones, and make up some lemon or lime curd to serve with them. The egg recipe I usually use is a Spinach and Cheese strata from smittenkitchen.com which gets made the day before and then refrigerated overnight. I love hosting brunches!

So I guess I'm doing the bacon in the oven thing wrong. I saw Alton do it on Good Eats, and tried it myself. It made a HUGE mess. The stuff that normally splattered on the stovetop covered my oven instead. Smoke alarms went off...a lot.

Obviously, I don't need to tout the benefits of bacon in the oven...

What I CAN recommend is one thing: Find a local meat market and get REAL bacon. Not the kind that comes sliced in plastic. Find a market that has a slab of bacon in the case and say "I want <whatever amount you want> of that bacon, breakfast sliced". Then cook in the oven at 425 until as crisp as you like. I promise, it will be beyond worth it.

I live in Indianapolis and we have a store called Goose the Market. They have THE BEST applewood smoked bacon. Locally sourced, organic and delicious! And a special treat for your brunch guests.

@holler and anyone else still looking at this thread

off topic... but

http://paddynotpatty.com/

it hurts me as an Irish person! And remember we don't eat corned beef foor St Patrick's day, but more usually boiled bacon...

(ends off-topic rant)