Roasted Bacon
No Fuss And No Mess
- Servings: Makes 1 pound of bacon.
Some insist that bacon should be fried in a cast iron pan, or zapped in a microwave while sitting on a paper towel. But roasting it in the oven produces bacon as crispy as you like without spattering grease all over your kitchen -- or microwave -- walls.
However, to cook bacon in your oven you need to use a rimmed sheet pan or else that two-piece broiling pan that came with your oven. A flat cookie sheet won't do because as the fat renders out of the bacon, it needs to collect in the bottom of the pan and without a 1-inch rim, you'll wreck your oven.
If you cook turkey bacon, it has less fat and thus will take less time to cook so watch the cooking so that the bacon doesn't burn.
Makes 1 pound of sliced bacon -- or as much as your pan can hold.
Ingredients
- 1/2 to 1 pound sliced bacon
Directions
- Prepare a rimmed sheet pan by lining it with aluminum foil. This helps in clean-up afterwards. You can also use the two-part broiling pan that probably came with your oven and if you do, line the bottom of the pan with foil.
- Preheat oven to 400° F.
- On a rack placed inside the foil-lined sheet pan or else on the top of the two-part broiling pan, place individual strips of bacon. Try to not overlap the pieces so that when cooking, they won't stick together.
- Place in the preheated oven and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan half-way through. Check the bacon occasionally because some of the pieces on the edge of the pan will cook more quickly and can be taken out of the oven before the entire quantity is done cooking. Turkey bacon will cook more rapidly than pork bacon.
- The complete time needed to cook the bacon will vary depending upon the thickness of the bacon and how well done or crispy you like your bacon to be.
You can also use this cooking method to cook round slices of pancetta as a luxurious topping to a salad or to take a different approach to a BLT sandwich.
