How to Bake Bacon

Have you ever wanted to have bacon that was cooked perfectly crisp and flat? Baked bacon is perfect for use in recipes, and in making a bunch of bacon for a large gathering. Scroll down to find out how to bake bacon with ease.

A pound of bacon that has been cooked in the oven.

Have you ever wondered how you could bake bacon?

I normally have breakfast out, I am not a morning person, and making coffee and wearing matching clothes is pretty much all I can do in the morning. I have breakfast at the same place every day, it is in the building where I work. Every day they have perfectly crisp, and perfectly flat pieces of bacon. So I asked them what do you do? They bake bacon, and so can you.

Baking Bacon is Easy to Do!

Preheat your oven, grab a jelly roll pan and a wire rack and you place slices of bacon on the wire rack, and you can cook bacon in no time at all.

Honestly, there are many advantages to cooking bacon in the oven. Cleanup is easy. Maybe you can cook bacon without it splattering everywhere, but I cannot, bacon for me goes, pretty much everywhere.

Flat pieces of bacon are no problem, sometimes cooking bacon in a frying pan means uneven pieces. Cook a whole package of bacon at once! Excess grease simply drips away.

Give baking bacon a try soon!

Cooked bacon on a baking sheet.

Use your perfectly cooked bacon for these recipes:

A pound of bacon that has been cooked in the oven.

How to Bake Bacon

Learn how to bake bacon. 
5 from 5 votes
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Course: Breakfast
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Bacon Recipes
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 8
Calories: 236kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 pound bacon

Instructions

  • Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil, you can leave the foil a little crinkled so the grease doing pool under the bacon. 
  • Do not use a flat cookie sheet, use a bar pan. A flat cookie sheet will get you a mess in your oven, as the grease forms it will drip down the pan.
  • Lay out bacon one strip at a time on the cookie sheet. The bacon should not touch. You can leave about a quarter inch between of space between each slice of bacon. 
  • Place cookie sheet with bacon into the oven and bake for 15-17 minutes. When the bacon is browned and crispy, you will drain it on paper towels. Now wasn't that easy?

Video

Notes

What to do with all of this bacon goodness

  • You can precook bacon for a whole week on the weekend, and simply reheat just before serving.
  • Store cooked bacon in an airtight plastic bag, and use as you like
  • Be sure to save the bacon grease for cooking in other recipes.

Nutrition

Calories: 236kcal | Carbohydrates: 0g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Cholesterol: 37mg | Sodium: 375mg | Potassium: 112mg | Sugar: 0g | Vitamin A: 20IU | Calcium: 3mg | Iron: 0.2mg

About Stephanie Manley

I recreate your favorite restaurant recipes, so you can prepare these dishes at home. I help you cook dinner, and serve up dishes you know your family will love. You can find most of the ingredients for all of the recipes in your local grocery store.

Stephanie is the author of CopyKat.com's Dining Out in the Home, and CopyKat.com's Dining Out in the Home 2.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Nighthawk

    Instead of a conventional oven, we use a NuWave oven. The fat drips away below. We just wipe it out. Clean up is not a hassle. The bacon comes out really nice and tastes more like ham.

  2. Nighthawk

    Instead of a conventional oven, we use a NuWave oven. The fat drips away below. We just wipe it out. Clean up is not a hassle. The bacon comes out really nice and tastes more like ham.

  3. JetfireK

    Beginning early, oven should be 250 degrees. Bacon placed on your removal oven broiler where the grease drips to the bottom of the pan and there is no splashing and its actually crispy and not greasy. Just my thoughts….

    • Stephanie Manley

      I haven’t found the bacon to be greasy. Crinkling the foil means the bacon doesn’t sit flat. I am clear about draining it on paper towels. I chose to present it this way because I don’t know who has broiler pans, and who has cooling racks, I wanted to demonstrate how to do this with the fewest items possible. I appreciate your comments. I don’t think that starting my oven at 250, would give me a 15-17 minute cooking time. I think my oven would use most of that time to get to the higher temperature.

  4. Roberto Mendoza-Klein

    I bake mine on my large broiler pan. Spray first with olive oil spray. Lay it flat thick or thin and broil it at low or hi depending on the thickness for 12-15 minutes. Take out and lay flat on paper towles to drain and crisp. Perfect bacon everytime.
    I also do the bacon in the microwave on bacon holders. They are triangle shaped and you drape each piece of bacon over the top and it cooks draining into the holder. 5 minutes and they are done. This is even faster.

  5. Joanna

    I always make bacon in the oven. The only differences I do are, lay the aluminum foil flat so it catches the grease and I place a cookie cooling rack over the aluminum foil and lay the bacon that. It also prevents you from having to flip the bacon as it is raised up and allows the heat to travel on either side of the bacon. It is healthier because the bacon doesn’t lay in the fat either.

  6. Sharkiebower

    This is the only way I will make Bacon anymore. I make 2 lb at a time. Because of this technique I am free to move about my kitchen and do other things instead of dodging flying bacon grease.

  7. Fran

    Love the photo. It makes me want to dive in! Baking bacon is the best way I’ve found to cook the evil temptress. I line a jellyroll pan with foil and put a cooling rack on top and put the bacon on that. This way the bacon does’t sit in the rendered fat.

  8. moo

    I also have been doing this for years. I have never had a problem with it making a mess in my oven. Never a splatter at all. I do put the bacon on my cookie cooling rack, so the fat drips down. I do an entire pound at a time and freeze it so my mom can have her favorite BLT’s whenever she chooses.

  9. grammygram

    Well, I’ve did do this until I realized I was cleaning my oven more often. Between baking the bacon and doing the chicken breasts my oven was a mess.

  10. Ann

    I love baked bacon and – for some reason – I always forget to do that! Thanks! Like you – if I cook it in a pan it splatters EVERYWHERE!

  11. Khuess

    We have been cooking our bacon in a pan like this but rather than in the oven, we do it in the gas grill. No smoke from spatters and even less bacon smell in the house! More and more I have making large brunches for family and friends and cooking the bacon on the grill frees up oven space for the Dutch Babies and breakfast casseroles or bakes French Toast.

    • Anonymous

      Great tip, a lot of ovens aren’t that even. I heard someone tell me they keep you oven thermometers in their oven, one in the front and one in the back.

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