Bacon

It has come to my attention that I need to let people know how I cook bacon. I was working with a woman that wanted to buy a new stove. She wanted to go from a coil top to a smooth top for easier cleaning. "My husband fries bacon and makes a mess of everything!" Most people, including me for a long time, cook bacon in a pan on top of the stove and make a mess. Grease splatters every where and is not fun to clean up. So this is how I have learned to make bacon from being in food service most of my life. No splatters and hardly any mess.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Or you don't have to preheat. There are 2 schools of thought here. Preheating cooks faster and makes a crispier bacon. Setting a pan in a cold oven and then turning it on gives you more rendered fat and limp bacon. Your choice.

Cover one or two cookie sheets (with a rim) with parchment paper or foil. Lay the bacon out on the pan so that the slices are flat and just barely touching. Depending on how much and what kind you are making, a pound of bacon will cover 1 to 2 sheets. Thick sliced bacon has fewer slices per pound than thin sliced bacon.

Put the cookie sheets in the hot or cold oven and bake for 15 to 30 minutes. The first couple of times you do this keep a close watch on it. Thin bacon in a hot oven cooks faster than thick sliced in a cold oven. Play with your food and figure out what works best for you.

When you take the pans out of the oven (with pot holders) have a container ready for the rendered fat. I use pint Mason jars. Now, I pour off the fat right away. It can be tricky to do with the bacon still on the pan, but I have always lived dangerously. You can transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined oven safe plate then pour off the fat. If you don't want to save the fat let the pans cool and the fat solidify and just throw the parchment or foil away.

If you are not ready to eat just yet set the plate in the oven that has been turned off. It will stay hot. If left too long it will cook more, but that risk is minimal around our house. Hope it is at your house too.

Enjoy!