Bacon adds a subtle sweet and smoky flavor to food, and we love using it as a base in a lot of our dishes. But unless we're planning a hearty breakfast the next day, it's annoying to buy a whole package when we only need a slice or two.
Freezing slices individually is a simple solution to this problem and also ensures that we have bacon on-hand for dishes like our New England Fish Chowder, Herbed Lentils with Bacon, and stir-fried greens.
To freeze individual slices of bacon, first tear off a long length of plastic wrap. Lay one piece of bacon at the end and roll it once in the plastic so that it's completely wrapped. Lay another piece of bacon on top of the first (so that there's a layer of plastic wrap between the two) and roll it again. Keep stacking slices of bacon and rolling until you've used the entire package of bacon. (Note: If you prefer not to use plastic wrap, parchment paper works just as well.)
When you need a slice for cooking, just unroll the bundle to expose the top layer of bacon and break it off! Since bacon is so thin and fatty, it will thaw in a few minutes at room temperature while you're preparing the other ingredients for your meal.
We also find that it's actually easier to cut bacon into an even dice while it's still frozen!
(Image Credit: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)
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My roommate and i like to lay out sheets of plastic wrap, then lay out one breakfasts worth of bacon (we don't eat much of it), then another layer of plastic wrap and so on. Then we stick the whole thing in a ziplock bag and stick it under our ice cube trays in the freezer.
Then if we decide to have bacon with breakfast, we just peel off a perfect serving size for two :)
view ktoth04's profile
What a great tip! We usually freeze bacon because we don't eat it too often, and when a recipe only calls for a few pieces I generally forget to defrost, then it's all stuck together in the package anyway.
I'm really happy to learn about this! Thanks!
view bobcatsteph3's profile
I just started doing this in the last year after being frustrated at how little bacon my husband and I eat and being entirely unsatisfied with having to defrost the whole lot.
I've also been doing many others in portions such as pumpkin puree for making muffins. I preportion the sizes I need and mark them on the plastic and they're ready to go, same for ginger, applesauce etc.
I wish we'd done this when I was a kid!
view CWillows's profile
My mother always froze bacon in 2-4 slice increments, and so I have always done the same, usually in aluminum foil.
view smilla653's profile
After dealing with a solid block of bacon when needing only a couple slices, I posed the question on Chicago's LTH Forum about buying bacon by the slice. It's apparently available at butchers, gourmet food shops, etc. that sell it that way and often it's home smoked, can be cut to desired thickness, etc.
view Benjy's profile
I love this idea, surprisingly I remember my mom doing it when I was younger. Growing up in Wisconsin (just outside of Milwaukee) we'd go to this little kosher deli (Benji's) nearly every saturday or sunday for breakfast. They had the most amazing french toast and beef bacon. During a recent trip to Milwaukee my mother bought as much of the bacon as she could and shipped me some frozen.
view bcarter82's profile