I’m going to show you something today that just might change your life. Do you avoid the whole bacon thing because you have to make a big greasy mess, have bacon oil splattered all over the place, and run the risk of scalding your forearms? Well let me show you a little trick where you can cook bacon and not have a single dirty dish. Really, not one! It’s so easy that you might just find yourself cooking bacon every day purely for the purpose of snacking on it. Errr…okay, maybe that’s just me. Pretend I didn’t say that.
You’re going to need your favorite bacon, a baking sheet, and some aluminum foil.
- Turn on your oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Use heavy duty if you have it. Lay out bacon slices in a single layer. They can be close together, just avoid overlap. You can also lay a metal cooling rack in your pan and lay the bacon on top of that. Personally I think it tastes way better when it cooks up in its own drippings!
2. You don’t need to wait for your oven to preheat. Place pan in the oven for about 12-15 minutes. Watch bacon after that and cook until desired level of crispiness. I like mine on the crispy side so I cook it for about 15-17 minutes. Cooking time depends on the thickness of the slice as well.
3. Immediately remove bacon from pan and place on paper towels to soak up grease.
Now you’ve still got that pan full of drippings. And I promised no mess and no dirty dishes. Don’t worry, I’m a woman of my word. Note that at this point, you could save the drippings if that’s your type of thing (and according to the comments it’s quite important to many of you!) Or…when your bacon has cooled take the paper towels it was draining on and place them right on the baking sheet. They’ll immediately start soaking up the grease so you don’t accidentally spill on yourself, and this way you don’t have to find something to pour the oily mess into.
Then take the foil and wrap it right up into itself until you have a little package to toss right in the garbage can.
And as long as you didn’t pierce any holes through the foil, your pan is completely clean! Now how easy is that? Plus, you have the best, crispest, flattest bacon, the bacon dreams are made of!
Back to baking. Baking bacon also results in nice flat pieces. Flat bacon comes in handy for stuff like Bacon-Pineapple Burgers and Egg Salad BLT’s
I especially love baking bacon when I need a whole bunch to crumble up and sprinkle on stuff like Chicken-Bacon Stuffed Pizza Rolls, Spinach Mandarin Poppyseed Salad, and Bacon & Blue Twice Baked Potatoes. You can be cooking the bacon in the oven while you prep the rest of the food so you don’t have to sit there and babysit a hot skillet.
Questions & Reviews
I water down the bacon, I know sound weird but gives off more hickory or applewood flavor more and cook it in oven. Yum yum. We had BLT last night
Solely vacuum packed bacon freezes properly, for up to 2 months.
I make 2 pans at a time=1pound…but I do it on the gas grill outside (with the cover closed) and drain the pans once during baking off the deck in the grass
I put another piece of foil on top and put a glass pan on top and then you have flat pieces for sandwiches and easy to freeze.
You are right, bacon rules, no doubts. Do you think that it would be ok to use parchment paper instead of the aluminum foil? Or would it burn up in the oven?
In a pinch it would probably work, but I’ve never tried it.
In comment 52 above, she says she uses parchment paper with success.
I do this, but I still end up with bacon grease on the INSIDE of my oven – I find myself having to clean the entire oven after each bacon cooking – any tips for how to avoid this? Thanks!
Did you see Diana’s suggestion? Maybe try that. I’ve never had a problem with it splattering, so I’m not sure!
When I do my bacon in the oven I place paper towel on the foil then place just enough water to wet the paper towel. I then put a cooling rack on top of the paper towel with the bacon on top of the cooling rack. It keeps the grease from splattering and cooks the bacon with out drying it out. The paper towel soaks up the grease so there is no chance of a spill taking it out of the oven.
Question: Can you put more than one pan in the oven at the same time, or does it mess up the heat flow thing like it does with rolls? And really ,truly, is there NO mess in the (regular) oven? Or is it just a little mess in the oven. I’m a bit chicken after having flames come out of my toaster oven from not cleaning out my crumb tray in a timely fashion. Won’t do that again.
I’ve been doing this for a while now and it really is the best way to cook the bacon. Becky B, it does mess up the heat flow (for me at least). I usually have to cook the top pan around an extra 5 minutes. And yes, there really isn’t any mess in the oven so long as you don’t take it out too fast because the bacon isn’t cooking at so high a heat that the grease splatters like it does on the stove top.
Yeah! A girl after my own heart. Years ago my father-in-law said bacon was better cooked in a skillet and my sweet mother-in-law always wanted to please him and I thought they were both crazy since the microwave was faster and cleaner. However, I have become a oven cooked bacon convert. You really have to watch those last few minutes so be careful. It has the advantage of been the best texture and the easy clean up.
Thanks for the tip! This worked great & saved me having to wash yet another pan as I am cooking & baking for Christmas. Love it!!
Instead of using paper towels to soak up the grease from the pan, if there are no holes in the foul then place it in a bowl and let the grease turn solid. Then close foil into a ball and throw away. Found this idea in Pinterest and it works great!!
We did this today! Thank you so much, this is how I will be cooking our bacon from now on!!!:)
Or…instead of tossing those bacon soaked paper towels, put them in a plastic bag and stick them in the freezer. Next time you want to barbeque, use them as non chemical fire starters for charcoal!
Hi, Have you ever tried to cook your bacon on your “GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL”. Works really slick, no splattering, cook your bacon as “crispy” as you like it and clean up is a breeze.
Give it a try, if you haven’t already.
Mary
I realize I’m like years late to this conversation, but does the bacon splatter all over the inside of your oven when you cook it in there?
Nope 🙂
I guess I’ve been stalking here since I use your recipes often but have never commented! Not that I remember, anyway. 🙂 I have loved every recipe I’ve tried.
Have you ever tried wrapping meatloaf in bacon? I know, I know, meatloaf…
My husband has never liked meatloaf before, but I baked it as a shaped loaf wrapped in bacon (with the sauce spooned on top) on a broiler pan. He’s sold on it. 🙂 Just another thing to use bacon with!
Thanks for your wonderful blog. It’s everything a recipe blog ought to be!
I’m trying your breakfast bacon and potato recipe tonight! I wasn’t much looking forward to cooking the bacon… but now I can’t hardly wait to give this a try. So perfect for a busy mom!!!
THANKS!
Sounds great!! and the other recipes you have at the end look heavenly!!!
Thanks!
Friends & family make fun of my love for bacon! Who cares, right? The oven, pan fried & microwave all tend to have a different taste & texture. Baking is the very best! I try to find the THINNEST sliced I can find…cooks up crisp & not hard. And I like that with the right pan…I can cook LOTS at one time. Found a butcher who says he’ll slice some FRESH bacon as thin as I want it! OMG!
What a great way to cook bacon without all that crazy grease to clean up. Can’t wait to try it!
I have cooked bacon like this for years-love it. Here’s the problem- I have never ended with a clean pan! One thing that I haven’t done before is use the paper towels to soak up extra grease, so I tried that with such high hopes. Sad to say after soaking, cooling, extra… I lifted up the foil and dang! -still greasy? I overlap the foil layers a lot and make sure it wraps up over the edges, I don’t poke holes- what am I missing????
Karen, definitely use heavy duty foil. It’s thick and large enough that you won’t have to worry about overlapping (grease ALWAYS makes its way through when I do that!) Works every time 😉
Tried this morning. Loved it! Cooked evenly and little mess.
Bacon!So good that it’s even good on a salad! A salad!!!!!
OK, I tried this tonight with thick peppered bacon. It really worked! The bacon was GREAT! Your clean-up idea was just as easy as 1-2-3. Thanks for such a GOOD idea. Love to you. From, L
Okay, I love this for so many reasons! One inparticular is I hate when I’m trying to make something, and I am running out of skillets, or even room on the stove top. This is perfect! I can’t believe I haven’t been doing this all along! Thanks!
Just tried it. Worked like a charm. I am NEVER going back to the skillet for cooking bacon. Have I told you lately how awesome you are? Awesome. Totally. Hope you are enjoying Hawaii.
I use this all the time. I love not having to clean up the bacon grease spattered all over my stove, and that I can set the timer and walk away. My husband has seen me make it like this many times, recently he went to a Men’s Breakfast at our church. He ended up helping cook the bacon, and he cooked it like this. All of the men were raving about how good it was and some of them even came up to me telling me how great it was. Thanks so much! I tell people about your blog all the time!
I tried this for brunch this morning and my husband was hovering over me asking if I was sure it was going to work. He is used to microwaved bacon which I am trying to get away from. He was nervous that it wouldn’t get crispy. When he and my son ate it they said it was the best bacon they had ever tasted. I told them that Sara and Kate could be trusted. Unlike some of the other sketchy recipes or methods I have tried from the internet. Thanks ladies!
I think this post just changed my life. I love bacon, but I hate cooking it. I never cook bacon, if we ever have any my husband cooks it. I also like crunchy bacon, which is really hard to do on a skillet because it burns so easily. But putting it in the oven, and not even having to wait for it to preheat? That’s just too easy. Thank you!