Best Way to Cook Bacon: Soft/Crisp? Fry/Bake/Microwave?

[abooja]

I've not tried the oven method, but have found that the easiest way to achieve perfectly flat, chewy bacon in to make it the Cuisinart Griddler -- closed, of course. I hate dragging out the machine, and then cleaning it, but nothing beats it for bacon and pancakes.

[Chris Amirault]

Oooh: an electric griddle.... That's very interesting....

[HungryC]

Gentlemen, I submit to you the bestest-bacon-ever: grilled bacon. Start with thick-cut, substantial bacon (like Benton's or Nueske's or from your favorite local smokehouse) and grill it over hardwood lump charcoal. See here...finished bacon piled atop cornbread, and bacon cooking in a Big Green Egg atop a raised grid.

RE: oven-cooked pan bacon; a method as old as food-service kitchens, I'd imagine. Pretty much standard bacon cooking practice in hotels, cafeterias, etc. It's still the best way to cook bacon for a crowd, especially if you sprinkle the bacon with brown sugar & chopped pecans.

[qrn]

The real easy way is to put it on a plate(not plastic)lightly wrapped in a paper towelIn the M/Wave on high,

for 1 minute 30 seconds,nice and crispy,,,,fast and neat...

Bud

[BadRabbit]

The real easy way is to put it on a plate(not plastic)lightly wrapped in a paper towelIn the M/Wave on high,

for 1 minute 30 seconds,nice and crispy,,,,fast and neat...

Bud

This method works great for regularly sliced bacon but I find it makes shoe leather out of the thicker stuff.

[OliverB]

I've never used the oven for bacon, interesting idea. I usually make it in my non stick pan, the same I use afterwards for the scrambled eggs, they pick up all the nice brown bits and pieces. Most of the fat I drain out before and keep - or discard if I have lots in the freezer already.

I sometimes also use my George Foreman 3 in one or what it is grill thing. Works quite nicely, the fat drains out since the machine is tilted up, cooks from both sides. But I pretty much only do that if I then make waffles on the same machine, which isn't that often.

I also tried the microwave way, wasn't all that happy with it, but that was years ago, should probably give it an other try. Not that practical for a whole package of bacon or a whole piece of home made though, I'd guess.

After cooking I drain the bacon on a plate with paper towel, all sits in a low oven to keep warm, but not cook any further.

[eternal]

I go back and forth. The Alton Brown popularized method works well but I like a little more chew so I still tend to cook it on a griddle on top of a couple burners.

[Toliver]

I sometimes also use my George Foreman 3 in one or what it is grill thing. Works quite nicely, the fat drains out since the machine is tilted up, cooks from both sides.

I have a good friend who uses his George Foreman grill every morning to make the bacon for his bacon and eggs. It has a timer on it and when it goes off, he knows he has perfect bacon for breakfast.

edited to add:

On the other hand, frying bacon in a cast iron skillet achieves two things: 1) glorious cooked bacon and 2) a seasoned cast iron skillet which is a good thing. [/Martha]

Edited April 20, 2011 by Toliver (log)

[Phaz]

No sous vide bacon?

dcarch

MC actually has a 'Braised bacon' that is cooked SV. I want to say 140 degrees for 10-12 hours but could be wrong. I think they put some water in the bag as well.

The best bacon I've had lately was also from MC. For the bacon with caramel & apple leather they say to dehydrate the bacon for 4 hours at a temp of 175 I believe.

Mine doesn't go that high so I did it about 160. It was amazing. The bacon was fully cooked but all the fat that normally renders out... didn't. The dehydrator was perfectly clean. All that fat (and thus flavor) actually stayed in the bacon. You could taste the difference. The 'meaty' parts had a little bit of chew to them, but the fat was almost juicy. It was really really good. I preferred it with thick cut bacon to the really thin stuff the book recommends.

There is also a recipe in MC for bacon with a sweet syrup that is dehydrated at 140 for 12 hours. That stuff comes out more like jerky and is quite chewy, but it still has so much flavor while you are chewing it the bacon flavor and sweet flavors mix together and just keep coming. It's interesting. I'm not a fan of sweet stuff so it wasn't my cup of tea, but several people who I had try it fell in love. I need to work on how to do it with thick cut bacon without getting it too chewy (or find some better quality thin bacon).

Yes, the first thing I did with MC was find all the bacon recipes.. I also made the Bacon Jam which was good...

Edited April 20, 2011 by Phaz (log)

[Paul Bacino]

I usually cook mine on a silpat mat.... 375 till the desired doneness.. wife and I dont agree on that.. I'm the crispy man.. I kind like that long time thing chris.

[alanjesq]

I too, use a cast iron griddle. But in order to prevent curling, I have an identical cast iron griddle that I place on top as a press. The curve of the top griddle fits right over the curve of the pan upon which the bacon frys. Works very well.

alanjesq

[andiesenji]

The real easy way is to put it on a plate(not plastic)lightly wrapped in a paper towelIn the M/Wave on high,

for 1 minute 30 seconds,nice and crispy,,,,fast and neat...

Bud

This method works great for regularly sliced bacon but I find it makes shoe leather out of the thicker stuff.

No way! This is a huge waste - no drippings for use in various applications, such as cornbread and flavoring green beans &etc.

I will stick to my old fashioned method which gives me both the bacon and the drippings.

[LindaK]

Two benefits of the oven method: (1) you can cook your bacon and ignore it at the same time. It's great when you're cooking a lot of it and have other distractions. No hovering over the stove required; and (2) no bacon grease spatter to clean up.

[eldereno]

I agree with the baking of bacon thing. I started out doing this with the bacon on a rack but now do it on parchment paper on the baking sheet. The rack thing was hard to clean. Doing it on the parchment paper means I can pour the fat off, wrap up the paper and have very little clean up. I often bake it until almost done and microwave it for a minute or more to get it where I want it. Usually do it in a 400 degree oven, starting it from cold. Like to make a large amount, refridgerate it, and microwave a few slices at a time for 30 seconds to rewarm and crisp it. I almost always use a thick sliced bacon.

[annachan]

I like mine from the oven. Bacon on a rack, on a lined sheet. Toward last 10 minutes or so, top with some brown sugar or maple syrup, and a pinch of cayenne.

[dcarch]

Bacon is fun.

dcarch

[heidih]

Two benefits of the oven method: (1) you can cook your bacon and ignore it at the same time. It's great when you're cooking a lot of it and have other distractions. No hovering over the stove required; and (2) no bacon grease spatter to clean up.

This is where I get lost - do you not then have rack that has to be scrubbed plus the spatters on the oven wall? - plus the sheet pan

[natasha1270]

Not sure but maybe starting it in a cold oven helps to minimize/eliminate splatter because I never notice any issue with the oven bacon. I assume the rack must be fairly well lubricated, any baked bits usually just wipe off.

fyi, I prefer my bacon to still have some life left in it (ie. not shatteringly crisp) maybe this is more of a problem for those that prefer it more crispy and it gets more baked on?

[Pierogi]

This is where I get lost - do you not then have rack that has to be scrubbed plus the spatters on the oven wall? - plus the sheet pan

I guess if you were actually cooking an entire full, or half, sheet pan, the spatters would be an issue....

But since I'm usually doing no more than 6 slices at a time, *AND* I have a self-cleaning oven (best. invention. ever), it's not a big deal for me, since the pan's pretty much dead center in the oven. OK, I have a pretty wide oven too. And the pan/rack rig goes into the dishwasher. I haven't found that the rack's been extraordinarily slimed, either. Usually I give it a quick blast with some cooking spray before the bacon goes on, and then let it soak in the sink in hot water for a bit before it goes into the machine. Certainly less work to clean, even manually after soaking, than a normal (not non-stick) fry pan....and no stove-top schmutz. That's the biggest thing. All those nasty little cracks and crevasses to get mucked up with the bacon spatters.......

[LindaK]

Two benefits of the oven method: (1) you can cook your bacon and ignore it at the same time. It's great when you're cooking a lot of it and have other distractions. No hovering over the stove required; and (2) no bacon grease spatter to clean up.

This is where I get lost - do you not then have rack that has to be scrubbed plus the spatters on the oven wall? - plus the sheet pan

The sheet pan needs to be cleaned, of course. I don't use a rack. Maybe it's the slower cooking at low temp or the indirect oven heat (as opposed to the direct flame beneath my skillet), but I don't get grease splatters. There's grease in the sheet pan, so just be careful when you pull it out of the oven.

You can adjust baking time to suit your preference. I like my bacon chewy rather than super-crisp, so I pull it out sooner than others might.

[HungryC]

The real easy way is to put it on a plate(not plastic)lightly wrapped in a paper towelIn the M/Wave on high,

for 1 minute 30 seconds,nice and crispy,,,,fast and neat...

Bud

This method works great for regularly sliced bacon but I find it makes shoe leather out of the thicker stuff.

No way! This is a huge waste - no drippings for use in various applications, such as cornbread and flavoring green beans &etc.

I will stick to my old fashioned method which gives me both the bacon and the drippings.

Microwave bacon produces perfectly nice drippings. I've used microwaved bacon drippings for years--always have a container of it in my fridge. No different than skillet-collected drippings, frankly. I have a microwave bacon tray that's angled with a trough at one end, which makes it so easy to pour off the collected fat.

[rotuts]

we all seem to lover our bacon!

[Chris Hennes]

Well, all of us here know that hipsters and the man can never ruin bacon.

[Katie Meadow]

Rangetop. Large SQUARE cast iron pan. Low and slow. Watched and fussed over til almost very crisp. Laid and patted dry in an accordion of paper towels. I wouldn't call it the best way to cook bacon, but it's mine.

[mcdiarmid]

We routinely grill the whole rasher on our BBQ at a low temp. No cleanup other than a burn off after. Plus our next BBQ grilled meal gets a nice bacon flavor.