How to Bake Bacon

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September 5, 2011 49 Comments

Have you ever wondered how you could bake bacon? I normally have breakfast out, I am not a morning person, and making coffee and wearing matching clothes is pretty much all I can do in the morning. I have breakfast at the same place everyday, it is in the building where I work. Everyday they have perfectly crisp, and perfectly flat pieces of bacon. So I asked them what do you do? They bake bacon, and so can you.
sandwich with crisp bacon
Honestly, there are many advantages in cooking bacon in the oven. Cleanup is easy. Maybe you can cook bacon without it splattering everywhere, but I cannot, bacon for me goes, pretty much everywhere. I love bacon, but I hate cleaning up after frying bacon in a pan. I am not one that can cook every piece of bacon perfectly fat, and crisp, my bacon tends to be overdone, and underdone all in the same piece. This way I can make bacon and it’s flat, and crisp. Finally, by cooking bacon in the oven, I can move other items, for me, this is perfect when I do want to cook breakfast for a crowd.

How to Bake Bacon

Author: CopyKat Recipes
Recipe Type: Bacon
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Serves: 1

Learn how to bake bacon in the oven, flat crisp pieces, and no mess.

Ingredients

Bacon
Cookie sheet - with sides - do not use a flat cookie sheet
Foil

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil, you can leave the foil a little crinkled so the grease doing pool under the bacon. Do not use a flat cookie sheet, use a bar pan. A flat cookie sheet will get you a mess in your oven, as the grease forms it will drip down the pan. Lay out bacon one strip at a time on the cookie sheet. The bacon should not touch. You can leave about a quarter inch between of space between each slice of bacon. Place cookie sheet with bacon into the oven and bake for 15-17 minutes. When the bacon is browned and crispy, you will drain it on paper towels. Now wasn't that easy?

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Julie

I also frequently make bacon in the oven, with the cooling rack. I don’t always use foil in the pan, but let the grease cool in the pan and then wipe it out with a plastic bag to wrap it up and throw it out. If I don’t do it in the oven, I use my microwave with lots of paper towels to sop up the grease as it cooks.
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http://www.facebook.com/james.mckay.3382 James McKay

Taking a page from Epic Meal Time today are we? http://www.epicmealtime.com/ baking bacon appears in just about every episode!
- http://www.copykat.com Stephanie
  
  You know I just recently began to watch Epic Meal Time. I think many people love the bacon.
Lenriz

ummm, the temp of the oven to bake the bacon would be nice.

thanks
- http://www.copykat.com Stephanie
  
  350.
My2cents

I use a large disposable foil broiler pan, works great!
Carla

I used to bake mine at 400 until I read an article that if you bake at 375 it renders the fat in the bacon better and you get a crispier bacon. I tried it and it worked much better than the higher temp.. . I like my bacon extra crispy : ) just sayin’
Carla

I used to bake mine at 400 until I read an article that if you bake at 375 it renders the fat in the bacon better and you get a crispier bacon. I tried it and it worked much better than the higher temp.. . I like my bacon extra crispy : ) just sayin’
Carla

I used to bake mine at 400 until I read an article that if you bake at 375 it renders the fat in the bacon better and you get a crispier bacon. I tried it and it worked much better than the higher temp.. . I like my bacon extra crispy : ) just sayin’
mjj

I have done this for years, only difference is I put the bacon in the oven and then turn it on to 400, found that I do not have it spatter as much when starting it in a cold oven, same goes for doing this on a gas grill.
mjj

I have done this for years, only difference is I put the bacon in the oven and then turn it on to 400, found that I do not have it spatter as much when starting it in a cold oven, same goes for doing this on a gas grill.
texaswoman

The only way for me!
Asimmons

just made bacon in the oven for the 1st time. loved it. so easy – almost fool proof. the directions I had started with a cold oven and bake 17 – 22 minutes, depending on how thick the bacon is. came out perfect. wonder what the difference is between starting in a cold oven and pre-heating the oven.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NU6672FX7J43OT274U5L7J2JPQ Tara

I wonder if baked bacon would taste just as good in potato soup? http://imunchie.com/goodstuff/munchies/elegant-potato-soup-bacon-and-zucchini

I found a great recipe and I’d like to see if baked bacon adds a different flavor to it.
Aarushi Sharma

Insane Cooking Skills. Check out the quick hands this guy demonstrates while preparing some egg fried rice.

http://bit.ly/rNThHA
Aarushi Sharma

Insane Cooking Skills. Check out the quick hands this guy demonstrates while preparing some egg fried rice.

http://bit.ly/rNThHA
Lomp6038

Does it splash all over the oven?
Kelleygirl77

could you use a broiler pan? I use them for jalapeno poppers because I love using the jalapeno bacon grease drippings with other recipes! Like pork chops fried in spicy bacon drippings? YUM! (not the healthiest, but still… amazing flavor!)
I hate frying bacon. Hate the smell left in my kitchen and the mess! and I always manage to burn some on my ceramic cooktop stove, b/c the heat is so hard to slow down.
Melissa Waldron

I LOVE baking bacon! I started doing this after I got tired of making things messy just to have unevenly cooked bacon. I use a porcelain-lined cast iron skillet or a pie tin and no foil at all, and they don’t stick whatsoever. So happy more people are learning to make bacon the easy way!
I love cooking too, and have food blog full of personal recipes which are mostly very healthy with a heavy emphasis on taste and satisfaction. Please come and check it out! If you’ve got a food blog, too, post what it is in my blog comments!

xoxo,
Corner Girl
http://cornergirlcooks.blogspot.com/
Linda in NJ

I have been baking bacon in my oven for years. It is the way alot of big restaurants do it. I don’t use the broiler pan either. I hate to wash that thing and would not use it for bacon. It spatters more in the oven on a broiler pan than in a flat cookie sheet with edges. Line the cookie sheet with (Reynolds non stick foil works the best.) Use a hot oven 425 degrees.Put it in the oven and bake till crispy. Every pack of bacon is different. Some cooks nice and crunchy,some doesn’t. Depends on the grade of bacon. Put it on a few paper towels to drain and get the fat off the top side by dobbing with another paper towel. Allow your baking sheet to sit until the grease hardens. Roll it up and throw away. No mess to clean up. Keep the broiler pan for your steaks….
Wendy

This sounds like a really good idea. Do you think it would work with sausage; patties and/or links?
- Unicorn315
  
  It will..I worked in an institutional kitchen and sausage was always done in the oven. It does fine.
Debbie

I love oven baked bacon; been doing this for years! When I moved from Tx to NJ, my hubby’s family had never heard of baking it…so they learned something useful…lol. Always did this at the retirement home (where I worked) too!
Nighthawk

Instead of a conventional oven, we use a NuWave oven. The fat drips away below. We just wipe it out. Clean up is not a hassle. The bacon comes out really nice and tastes more like ham.
Nighthawk

Instead of a conventional oven, we use a NuWave oven. The fat drips away below. We just wipe it out. Clean up is not a hassle. The bacon comes out really nice and tastes more like ham.
JetfireK

Beginning early, oven should be 250 degrees. Bacon placed on your removal oven broiler where the grease drips to the bottom of the pan and there is no splashing and its actually crispy and not greasy. Just my thoughts….
- http://www.copykat.com Stephanie Manley
  
  I haven’t found the bacon to be greasy. Crinkling the foil means the bacon doesn’t sit flat. I am clear about draining it on paper towels. I chose to present it this way because I don’t know who has broiler pans, and who has cooling racks, I wanted to demonstrate how to do this with the fewest items possible. I appreciate your comments. I don’t think that starting my oven at 250, would give me a 15-17 minute cooking time. I think my oven would use most of that time to get to the higher temperature.
Toot2427

I’m sorry about your loss. Janice
Maurened

I have learned that if you put the cooked bacon on a rack with paper towel under the rack the bacon stays crisper.
Sjburzlaff

I bake mine on a broiling pan so the fat just drips below.
Prettypolly333

Sorry about your loss. Polly
Roberto Mendoza-Klein

I bake mine on my large broiler pan. Spray first with olive oil spray. Lay it flat thick or thin and broil it at low or hi depending on the thickness for 12-15 minutes. Take out and lay flat on paper towles to drain and crisp. Perfect bacon everytime.
I also do the bacon in the microwave on bacon holders. They are triangle shaped and you drape each piece of bacon over the top and it cooks draining into the holder. 5 minutes and they are done. This is even faster.
Mitzipars

This is the ONLY way I make bacon. It is an easy clean up. However, I do flip the bacon 1/2 way through the cooking.
Joanna

I always make bacon in the oven. The only differences I do are, lay the aluminum foil flat so it catches the grease and I place a cookie cooling rack over the aluminum foil and lay the bacon that. It also prevents you from having to flip the bacon as it is raised up and allows the heat to travel on either side of the bacon. It is healthier because the bacon doesn’t lay in the fat either.
- Swinglizrd
  
  This is exactly how i do it as well! It comes out perfect every time!
Sharkiebower

This is the only way I will make Bacon anymore. I make 2 lb at a time. Because of this technique I am free to move about my kitchen and do other things instead of dodging flying bacon grease.
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http://thinrecipes.com Fran

Love the photo. It makes me want to dive in! Baking bacon is the best way I’ve found to cook the evil temptress. I line a jellyroll pan with foil and put a cooling rack on top and put the bacon on that. This way the bacon does’t sit in the rendered fat.
moo

I also have been doing this for years. I have never had a problem with it making a mess in my oven. Never a splatter at all. I do put the bacon on my cookie cooling rack, so the fat drips down. I do an entire pound at a time and freeze it so my mom can have her favorite BLT’s whenever she chooses.
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grammygram

Well, I’ve did do this until I realized I was cleaning my oven more often. Between baking the bacon and doing the chicken breasts my oven was a mess.
http://www.cookinghealthyforme.com/ Ann

I love baked bacon and – for some reason – I always forget to do that! Thanks! Like you – if I cook it in a pan it splatters EVERYWHERE!
Khuess

We have been cooking our bacon in a pan like this but rather than in the oven, we do it in the gas grill. No smoke from spatters and even less bacon smell in the house! More and more I have making large brunches for family and friends and cooking the bacon on the grill frees up oven space for the Dutch Babies and breakfast casseroles or bakes French Toast.
http://polomecommunications.com/unfinishedwork Dcp_mail

i’ve been doing this for a few years. the only downside . . . we consume a lot more bacon
Aydenzmoma

I bake mine on a rack placed over my pan so it isn’t sitting in grease.
Aydenzmoma

I bake mine on a rack placed over my pan so it isn’t sitting in grease.
DrGeneLife

If you turn the pan around half way through, it cooks more evenly (my oven is not that even).
- Anonymous
  
  Great tip, a lot of ovens aren’t that even. I heard someone tell me they keep you oven thermometers in their oven, one in the front and one in the back.