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Tips & Techniques

Quick Reminder: Cook Bacon Low and Slow

Elizabeth Passarella
Elizabeth Passarella
Elizabeth Passarella is the author of the essay collection Good Apple and a contributing editor at Southern Living. A former editor at Real Simple and Vogue, she has spent more than 20 years writing about food, travel, home design, and parenting in outlets including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Parents, Martha Stewart Weddings, Coastal Living, Airbnb, and The Kitchn. Elizabeth grew up in Memphis, Tennessee and now lives with her husband and three children in New York City.
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updated May 12, 2022
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With the arrival of summer tomatoes, we’ve been eating a lot of BLTs. We spread our bacon slices out in a very large pan and cook them on the stovetop, and we were reminded last night that it pays to turn the heat down…

When we’re hungry and in a hurry, we’re always tempted to crank up the flame and sizzle the bacon fast and furious. But inevitably, we burn it. See, bacon can burn pretty quickly, and there are usually thinner spots in the middle of the slice that cook faster, meaning they’ll be burnt to a crisp before the juicy, fatty ends have time to cook.

There’s also the problem of hot spots in your skillet. No matter how fancy and expensive the pan we’re using, we find that we need to occasionally scoot the slices around to make sure the middles of the slices don’t cook too quickly.

All of this is best accomplished if you keep your heat on medium, even low-medium. The bacon will cook more evenly, and you have time to keep an eye on it and flip it before it burns. Because there’s nothing worse than having your L and T ready to go, only to have to start all over with the B.

How do you cook your bacon? Do you go slow in a skillet or microwave it?

Related: Tip: Save Your Bacon Fat

(Image: Flickr member rick, licensed for use under Creative Commons)