Bacon Baking

Hello and welcome to another, hopefully, informative food post on Boone Appétit. Today let’s talk about baking bacon. I don’t want you to think it’s one of those post that say things like,”You’ve been cooking ________ blank wrong your whole life!” Those little (you’ve been doing it wrong) posts are usually nothing short of click bait, which is an internet term for a headline that gets you to click on an article that takes you down a rabbit hole of countless pages lined with ads. I will say that I do eat bananas differently probably from most of you. But that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong! I had an uncle that use to work at the San Diego Zoo. As a kid I got to go behind the scenes and I met a chimpanzee that showed me an easier and better way (in my opinion) of eating the banana. Most humans use the stem of the banana as the handle to open the banana with. Most primates on the other hand actually use the long stem to hold the banana and open the other end. This accomplishes a couple things, first it’s easier to open the banana this way and second theres usually a little bit of a woody piece that’s in the banana at that end and when you open it the primate way you remove that little piece plus the long stem does make a great handle. And that’s how I learned to open my bananas , not from the internet but from a chimp!

Now, you’re starting to wonder where does bacon fits into all this? Ok so my whole life and for generations before me, people in my family have always made bacon in a frying pan on the stove. It seems the quick and logical way to cook bacon. However, it can be messy. Grease splatters all over the stove and I can’t count how many times I’ve been burned by cooking bacon. Still when a friend told me about baking the bacon I was totally skeptical. If I hadn’t heard of doing it in all my years of life then it most certainly must be wrong! Still I’m an open minded guy and what could it hurt to give it a try? Bacon is bacon any way you cook it. I am very glad that I did give it a try and I have to say I liked my bacon baked!

There’s a few good reasons to give this a try. First if you’re like me you’re probably not just cooking bacon on the stove but you might be making pancakes or french toast and eggs as well. Baking the bacon frees up the stove top so things aren’t as crowded. Second unless you’re sticking your hands in the oven while the bacon is cooking you are not going to get burned by popping little slices of goodness! Third and fourth the bacon doesn’t curl up as much and the fat is rendered out very nicely and on a side note clean up is also a breeze. You still have to use paper towels to absorb the grease but you’ll find much less grease on the bacon in the end. Baking bacon couldn’t be easier, just follow the steps below and you’ll be “doing it right.”

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• To Bake Bacon
• 1 Package of bacon sliced anyway you like.
• 1 or 2 cookie sheets or other oven proof dish lined with foil.
• Lay bacon out in strips next to one another try not to overlap them.
• Place bacon line tray in COLD oven
• Set oven to 400 degrees
• Around the 12-15 minute mark start looking at your bacon.
• Depending on the thickness your bacon should be done in 20 minutes.
• Remove from oven and place slices on a paper towel lined dish to soak up some of the grease.
• Enjoy your baked bacon!

That’s all there is to it. You want to put the bacon in a cold oven because more of the fat will be rendered by starting the cooking slowly. This also helps to keep the bacon from curling. The cooking times vary widely depending on how long it takes your oven to get up to temperature and how thick the bacon is sliced. In the pictures you can see the left side of my oven is hotter than the right. So I should have turned the cookie sheet around at the 12 minute mark. You also don’t need to flip the bacon which is very handy. You could but then it becomes more of a chore. You do want to watch the bacon closely after 15 minutes because that is the critical point where it could go from perfectly cooked to crunchy bits for salad! If you decide to give this a try please write back to us and let everyone know how it went. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’m not certain that I’ll always cook my bacon this way. Sometimes I like to make eggs in the bacon grease, so on those occasions I’ll still do it in a frying pan. When I’m using more than two burners on the stove , I will be baking my bacon. Thanks again for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this post. As always if you have any comments or questions please leave them in the box below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Until next time, Boone Appétit!