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How To Make Perfect Bacon in the Oven
Home Hacks

Bacon is one of life's great pleasures. Crispy, salty, and hot, it complements eggs and hash browns, sandwiches and desserts. But anyone who's been served a lump of greasy, soggy bacon knows how important it is to cook it to perfection.

 
 

What You Need

Ingredients:
High quality bacon like Niman Ranch

Tools:
Baking sheet with a 1/2"-3/4" lip (to catch the grease)
Aluminum foil

Instructions

1. Put your oven rack in the middle position, preheat the oven to 375° and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

2. Lay the bacon strips out flat on the baking sheet, leaving space so they don't overlap.

3. Pop the bacon in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. If it's thick bacon that produces a lot of grease you'll want to drain the grease halfway through.

4. When the larger grease bubbles subside and smaller bubbles appear on the bacon, you know it's done (see pictures #3 and #4). If the bacon is already firm in the oven then it's cooked to long. Bacon firms up as it cools, generally.

Additional Notes: In picture #5 you can see the difference between the bacon on the left which was baked for 15 minutes at 375 and the bacon on the right which was cooked for almost 20 minutes. Depending on how crispy you like your bacon, you can pull it out early or leave it in for a bit longer, but a couple of minutes makes a big difference. Remember to save your bacon fat for future uses!

Bacon Recipes
Here are some recipes that call for cooked bacon:

Candied Bacon Fudge
Easy Winter Recipe: Roasted Cabbage with Bacon
Recipe: Herbed Lentils with Bacon
BLT's!
Unconventional BLT's!


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(Images: Laure Joliet)

Comments (24)

I like mine with little bits of char on it. Does that happen in the oven? This seems like a great method!

posted by clampers on February 5th 2010 at 1:51pm
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Does it make a mess in the oven? Popping grease spots?
Otherwise- Ill continue to cook it on the grill.

posted by galleygirl on February 5th 2010 at 1:52pm
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We use a broiling pan instead of a baking sheet, this way all the excess grease falls between the slits and collects in the lower pan. It works great, and we've never had any problem with the bacon cooking evenly

Best way to make bacon is in a george forman grill. Makes it's own dipping sauce!

I swear not a single restaurant in my city (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada) knows how to properly cook bacon. If ordering bacon on anything I have to request them to "burn it" to get it satisfyingly crunchy. Bacon is generally served closer to raw here, it's disgusting.

posted by ShopgirlCA on February 5th 2010 at 2:38pm
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In the past, I've also put the bacon strips on a cooling rack set inside the cookie sheet- the extra fat drips off as it cooks, kinda like on the grill...

Drooooling!!!! I LIVE for bacon. Not even the movie "Babe" could get me to stop lovin' bacon!

posted by GreatFriend on February 5th 2010 at 2:48pm
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If you want perfectly flat slices that don't shrink up as much, line the pan with parchment, add a 2nd sheet of parchment on top of the bacon and another sheet pan on top of that so it presses the bacon flat. Cook at about 275 degrees for 30-40 min or so.

posted by Rpoole11 on February 5th 2010 at 3:05pm
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I have found that the easiest way for me to make "oven bacon" is to place the bacon in a cool oven (i.e. not preheated) and turn it on at 400 degrees. By the time the oven reaches that temperature, the bacon is almost done (maybe 1-2 minutes past the alert I get from the oven that it has hit the target temp).

posted by Nogard13 on February 5th 2010 at 3:06pm
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I made bacon for a crowd this morning. I put it on a cooling rack on a baking sheet so the grease drips off.

posted by Kate (NC) on February 5th 2010 at 3:20pm
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The cooling rack on the baking sheet is totally the way to go. We do it Ina Garten style and baste with maple syrup halfway through cooking. Sooo good!

My husband, the un-chef in the family, can actually make this bacon without messing it up, leaving me free to tend to other important breakfast prep. Splitting up the duties and leaving the bacon tending to someone else is a real time saver and stress reliever.

posted by reddylee on February 5th 2010 at 3:48pm
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Thick sliced bacon cooks really well in the oven. It's the only way I cook it anymore (unless it's chopped up for a recipe!).

posted by Patrick McNeal on February 5th 2010 at 4:45pm
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Weird. Maybe my oven runs hot, but I do 350 and it only takes maybe 8 minutes? I also flip it when it's starting to look like it may be done on the other side.

Allllllllso.... isn't the aluminum foil a waste? I just put mine on a crappy old nonstick jelly roll pan. The charred bits always clean up easily.

posted by any such name on February 5th 2010 at 6:32pm
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I honestly don't like my bacon crispy. Am I the only one, or is it just me and Peterborough, Ontario? I also do mine on a rack over a cookie sheet, and I don't flip it. I usually take my pieces out early so I can have it like I want it, and leave the rest in to crisp... or as I call it, harden.

posted by matchbookhymnal on February 5th 2010 at 10:44pm
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two words - four syllables - Parchment paper

Question for the cooling rack folks -- I've tried that, made great bacon, but then had the most terrible time cleaning the bacon grease from the joints in the rack. Any tips?

ddk-- baking soda and a VERY stiff brush do the job for me. I clean it as soon as possible so it doesn't have a chance to harden.

posted by matchbookhymnal on February 6th 2010 at 1:13pm
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matchbookhymnal: your not alone, myself and most of the restaurants in and around montreal don't like it crispy as well :P

posted by Catherine_g on February 7th 2010 at 1:39pm
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matchbookhymnal: There's at least one no-crispy bacon lover here in the DC metro area. And most of my family agrees with me as well.

In fact, I'd grown up with softer bacon, and one time, shortly after I'd become an adult and was out on my own, I was cooking for breakfast for a group event. I was totally hounded with, "EW! Who wants their bacon not crispy? That's disgusting!" You'd think by their responses I thought I must've been living under a rock or something.

So, I'm glad to hear there are others who don't want their bacon crispy.

posted by Trish1980 on February 7th 2010 at 3:33pm
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matchbookhymnal,

I HATE crispy bacon! My bf too! The other day we were making some and we agreed that crispy bacon is analagous to an overdone steak - it's a shame to ruin good meat by cooking all the flavor and juices out of it.

Oh god, these pictures are making me salivate. I think tonight is a good night for a bacon and eggs dinner!

posted by undercover on February 8th 2010 at 3:12pm
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I find broiling 3-4 slices of bacon 2 minutes per side with broiler on low* works. For larger batches I use a large baking sheet and can cook bacon for a crew by baking (not broiling) it in a preheated 375 oven for roughly 5 or so minutes per side (check often). I use aluminum foil for easy clean-up, it otherwise adds little to the cooking process.

*Important to note that I have one of those double-oven stoves with a small upper oven and large lower oven (Maytag Gemini). Upper oven only has hi or low setting for broiler mode.

BTW, this dual oven is a great back-saver for us Baby Boomers. I use the lower oven for turkeys, hams, or storage of pots & pans, etc.

posted by claudette49 on February 8th 2010 at 5:00pm
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I use parchment paper over the foil but I'm not sure why. Also I put the bacon in a cold oven then heat it up slowly. any way, baked bacon is the bestest.

posted by craftmomma on February 8th 2010 at 7:02pm
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I also usually have to order my bacon "crispy" at restaurants...I can't stand floppy bacon! We got sick of burning bacon on the stove so we started oven cooking a few years ago and we'll never go back!

I've been doing bacon this way for years! With a big family growing up, it insured that everyone got hot, crispy bacon at the same time. Pan frying usually ment that one person (at least) didn't get super hot bacon at the breakfast table.

posted by TheRealRed on February 15th 2010 at 2:06pm
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