Cooking Bacon in the Oven
Wanna know the secret to perfectly cooked bacon? It's not in the brine or smoking. Nope, it's in your oven. Literally, your oven is your secret.
Best Way to Cook Bacon
We love bacon. In fact, we love it so much we purchased an entire pig that was packaged up with lots of bacon. Full pig = more bacon. Makes complete sense for other bacon lovers out there.
As much as I love bacon, I could do without the smell permeating in every single thing in our home when it's being cooked. When cooked on the stovetop, the smell stays in the house for a few days when the bacon has been long devoured.
Oven Baked Bacon
So, I started making our bacon in the oven a few years ago. It serves three purposes:
- Less bacon smell throughout the house.
- Perfectly crisp bacon, which is the only way to eat bacon.
- Saves time since I can put it in the oven and get other stuff done. The time savings justifies the higher cost for bacon :)
How to Make Bacon in the Oven
Finally, making bacon in your oven is seriously so easy!
- Preheat oven to 400°.
- Place bacon on a baking sheet.
You can see I let mine overlap on the baking sheet. It separates when baking. - Place in the not-fully-warmed up oven.
You can also place in a completely cold oven and then set the temperature. - Bake for 20-30 minutes.
The time varies on your oven. I always check it at the 20-minute mark and add more time based on how it looks because we like our bacon extra crispy (nearly burnt but not black).
That's it! It's easy and saves time. This is also the BEST way to cook bacon to feed a large crowd. It saves so much time!
I let the bacon cool for 2-3 minutes and then place on a plate with paper towels to soak up the grease. I then drain all the grease from the baking sheet into a container to save for cooking. Oh yeah, it's the BEST grease for sauteeing onions, garlic, spinach, kale, and lots of other veggies.
For the record, we purchased a pastured pig so we know this bacon grease is a healthier option too. Five years ago, I would have never used bacon grease for cooking. Since I'm adding more healthy fats to my diet, this is like liquid gold! You can't buy this deliciousness!
What are some of your favorite recipes that use bacon?
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Cooking Bacon in the Oven
Cooking bacon in the oven – you will never make bacon any other way again!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°.
- Place bacon on a baking sheet.
You can see I let mine overlap on the baking sheet. It separates when baking. - Place in the not-fully-warmed up oven.
You can also place in a completely cold oven and then set the temperature. - Bake for 20-30 minutes.
The time varies on your oven. I always check it at the 20-minute mark and add more time based on how it looks because we like our bacon extra crispy (nearly burnt but not black).
I love cooking bacon this way. Much less time consuming than in a skillet.
My family recently started raising pastured pigs, Old Red Durocs. Check us out at
Blog.Fork Right Farm.com
I use a broiler pan instead of sheet pan. Grease drips through to the lower pan and can be easily poured from there. Bacon on the upper slotted pan is perfectly crisp with no need to drain since it’s already drained into the lower pan.
Great idea Gail!! I need a larger broiler pan because ours won’t fit all the bacon. I’m gonna try this next time with a smaller batch. Thanks!
I can’t wait to try this. Thank you for all your hard work educating us. I appreciate it.
What makes bacon grease a healthy fat as opposed to butter or canola oil or vegetable oil? I’m really looking for a reason to eat more bacon!
Leslie, canola oil and vegetable oils are man-made oils primarily made from genetically modified foods (corn and soy). I’m staying away from those items as much as possible so cooking with bacon grease or coconut oil is what I use the most. And, anything made with bacon grease is only that much better!