How to Cook Bacon in the Oven
Sharing my favorite method for cooking bacon. Oven cooked bacon means less mess, and more control over perfectly cooked bacon every time.
Ingredients
- 1/2 to 1 pound bacon any cut
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
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Line baking sheet (with atleast a 1/2" lip) with parchment paper or aluminum foil (this step helps immensely with the cleanup).
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Arrange bacon on pan so it is close together but not overlapping (I usually can get about 8-10 slices on a half baking sheet pan).
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Place uncovered baking sheet with bacon in preheated oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until bacon is cooked to your desired level of doneness.
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Remove bacon from oven and blot with paper towels before serving.
Recipe Notes
Perfect Bacon Tip--I like my bacon just barely crispy but still chewy. Cooked bacon will not come out crispy when you first take it out of the oven, but crisps up as it cools. That makes testing bacon a little more difficult so just know that it takes a little bit of practice to know how much to cook it so it will crisp up just enough without being burnt. In my oven it's somewhere around 25 minutes, give or take. Keep in mind that depending on the thickness of the bacon you may need to cook it shorter or longer.
Cooking Multiple Pans--You can cook up to three baking sheets of bacon at once in most ovens (one per rack). If your oven has convection bake that will usually help the sheets cook more even, but even with convection bake the oven may have hot spots so you may need to turn or rotate the baking sheets during cooking to allow for the bacon to cook more evenly. Lower the temp by 25 degrees if using convection (or check 5 to 10 minutes sooner).
Saving the Grease--While it is still warm, pour it into a glass jar. Then store it in the refrigerator to use later. It is delicious for frying eggs, vegetables, fried rice, French toast, etc.
Cleaning Tip--The easiest way to clean up is to wait for the pans to cool and the leftover bacon grease to harden slightly before removing the parchment paper or foil and discarding.