Today, we are mastering a life skill: Baked Bacon. Cooking bacon by baking it in the oven is hands-down the best way to make crispy bacon with less mess. You’ll proudly call yourself a bacon perfectionist!
How to Use Baked Bacon
Now that you’ve mastered the life skill of how to make oven baked bacon, it’s time to use it!
- Rimmed Baking Sheet. Your oven baked bacon BFF.
- Aluminum Foil. Adding a layer of this to your baking sheet makes cooking bacon in the oven a breeze to clean up.
- Oven-Safe Baking Rack. A key component in our crispy baked bacon.
Baked Bacon is the Best Bacon
The secret to perfect fried bacon is that it isn’t fried; it’s baked.
- Even Cooking. An oven-safe rack allows the heat to circulate evenly around the bacon, a key component of bacon excellence.
- Hands-Free. No standing at the stove to babysit your bacon. It cooks in the oven unattended.
- Safer. Oven bacon won’t splatter you with hot grease while you fry it.
- Restaurant-Worthy. Ever wonder how your favorite brunch, burger or BLT spot achieves those flat, thick, and magically crisp bacon slices? I’d wager my last piece that the bacon is baked. It’s the method most restaurants use.
- Bigger Batches. Cooking for a crowd? Bake two sheet pans at once.
- Easy Clean Up. Let the grease harden on the foil, then discard it. Simple!
- Healthier than Fried. The grease from the bacon drips off and is collected below the rack, which means it stays off your bacon and out of your body. I also pat the bacon to remove some extra grease and keep it crisp.
Want your bacon even faster? Make Air Fryer Bacon!
What temperature should you cook bacon in the oven?
What temperature should Bacon be preheated before baking?
We recommend baking bacon at 400 degrees F. For most recipes, you’d wait for the oven to preheat before you start baking. When baking bacon, however, we suggest sliding the sheet pan into the cold oven so the bacon sits inside as the oven comes to temperature.
Can you cook bacon in the oven?
Cooking bacon in the oven works well when cooking more than six strips of bacon or when you need to free up space on your stove top. Baking bacon also requires less attention during cooking since no turning is necessary. Curious about what heat to cook bacon in the oven? We suggest a relatively high temperature: Preheat the oven to 400°F.
How long should Bacon be cooked before cooking?
This tried-and-true method is the obvious choice when you need to cook 6 to 8 slices at a time. 1: Pull out the bacon from the fridge 15 to 20 minutes before cooking. At room temperature, bacon just cooks up better (just like steak). 2: Don’t preheat the skillet. Lay out the bacon strips without overlapping in a cold pan.
How to cook crispy bacon in oven?
If you want to cook crispy bacon in oven, the main trick to the recipe is to use an oven-safe cooling rack — instead of placing the bacon directly on the sheet pan. This means it doesn’t sit in the grease as it cooks and the fat drips down, which gets you that perfect crispness.