How to make oven baked bacon is the simplest and cleanest way to make a large or small amount of crispy bacon in the oven.
Do you all know about bakin’ bacon in the oven?
My mom is a traditional stove-top bacon fryer, and that’s all that I really knew. A few years ago my grandpa (the one who painted the pictures on my hutch) mentioned that he would bake large quantities of bacon in the oven to serve to his men’s group at church. That was honestly the first time I had ever heard about oven baked bacon.
Bacon and I have an interesting relationship. I, like the rest of the world, like the stuff. BUT when I was in high school I worked at an amazing little deli called The Big Cheese. Every Saturday for years, I fried up 30 to 40 POUNDS of bacon. It was to prep it for the rest of the week. I would spend literally hours frying bacon and produce something like 3 gallons of bacon grease by the time that I was done. I would come home and just smell so strongly of bacon I had to shower immediately. My clothes smelled until my mom washed them, my car would smell until it had a day or two to air out; Holy Bacon Batman! After years of this, I started to hate bacon, especially the smell.
I stopped eating bacon at around 16 and didn’t look back. The smell was what really set me off; I just hated that cooking bacon smell. So I lived a bacon-free life and didn’t think much of it. After I got married and started cooking more for a family instead of just myself, bacon slowly made a reappearance. I like it just fine now – it tastes great – but the smell still isn’t my favorite.
Baking bacon in the oven has been a total game changer for me!
It requires little to no effort, you don’t get splattered with hot grease, it’s easy to clean up, and the smell is not quite so in-your-face when you are done. The house definitely smells delightful and all of the babies come to see what I’m cooking, but it doesn’t linger forever or make your clothes bacony because you were standing over the pan.
You will LOVE how easy it is to get evenly crispy pieces and it literally takes out all of the work of cooking bacon, no matter how large or small the batch. It makes cooking a few pounds at a time a cinch (I’ve put three pans, one pound of bacon each, in the oven all at the same time and it worked great). Or, if you only need a few strips for a soup recipe, you can just throw it in the oven and forget it.
Trust me on this one, oven baked bacon is where it’s at!
Oven Baked Bacon is perfect to make bacon just to eat or to prep it for a recipe.
My favorite bacon recipes include these:
- The BEST Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad of Summer
- Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad
- Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cranberries, Bacon, and Maple
- Fall Salad with Maple Candied Pecans, Bacon, Apples, and Shaved Brussels Sprouts
- South of the Border Cheesy Bacon Quiche
- Grilled Brown Sugar Bacon Wrapped Chicken Skewers
- Creamy Chicken and Bacon Pasta
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PrintHow to Bake Bacon
How to make oven baked bacon is the simplest and least messy way to make a large or small amount of crispy bacon in the oven.
- Prep Time: 5 min
- Cook Time: 18 min
- Total Time: 23 minutes
Ingredients
- Bacon!
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil (have the foil overhang the edges so that the grease doesn’t get onto your pan). Lay the bacon onto the foil in a single layer, if the edges of the raw bacon overlap a little, that’s OK.
- Put the bacon in the oven and cook for about 18-22 minutes. You want the bacon to be cooked through but not too dark. So keep an eye on it towards the end of baking. The actual baking time will depend on the thickness of your bacon.
- When the bacon is cooked, take it out of the oven. Remove the bacon from the pan and place it on a paper towel-lined plate to absorb extra grease. You can pour the extra grease in the pan into a heat-resistant container and save it for another use. Once the pan is cool, simply throw away the foil.
- Enjoy in your favorite recipes or eat as is.
Notes
- You don’t have to wait for your oven to preheat all of the way to start cooking your bacon, just FYI.
So tell me…
Without a doubt my favorite way to cook bacon!
This is the only way I cook bacon now! It’s much cleaner and I just keep it wrapped in a paper towel in a ziploc and use pieces throughout the week (or freeze); in salads, in sandwiches, for breakfast, baked beans, etc…
Whhaaa?! I have never thought to precook it for myself even though that’s what I was doing at the deli. I feel like you just gave me a big “light bulb” moment. LOL! Thanks!
Best way to do it for a big family or a crowd.
I discovered this a few months ago and it was a game changer for me also. I didn’t have a reason for not liking the smell of cooking bacon, but I didn’t (it started in my teens also) and thus I wouldn’t eat it. Then I met my bacon loving husband and things had to change so I stove cooked it and just dealt with it, showered after cooking every time. Recently, learned this little trick and life has been grand since! I get up, preheat the oven, put bacon in and have a cup of coffee while I spend time with my main squeeze! So glad you have discovered this also!
I do one thing differently, I put my wire cooling rack on top of the foil in the pan so the bacon doesn’t sit in the grease, I’ve found this helps to make it more crispy, without having to bake longer (and potentially burn). Then I just put the wire rack in the dish washer and it is good as new! Yay for oven baked bacon!!
I’m glad I’m not alone in my bacon smell disliking 🙂 And I’m totally trying the wire rack thing. SMART!
I buy the thick bacon and sprinkle it with New Mexico red chile powder and a little brown sugar before baking. It’s awesome!
I’m a sweet and salty fanatic! I’m so trying that!
Yes, I LOVE cooking bacon in the oven. I actually use a cooling rack inside of the foil lined pan so that the grease drips away as it cooks!
Best idea ever! You smart lady… trying that this weekend!
Yes, we have been making bacon in the oven for a long time. Try sprinkling it with brown sugar or with chili powder and red hots! It is a wonderful way to cook up a batch for the week ahead too. Makes those busy weekday breakfasts yummy. Love the Big Cheese too! Your Aunt is a wonderful person.
Love cooking it this way. My hubby thinks I’m crazy, but I hate trying to fry up an entire pan of it… you can only ever fit 4 or 5 pieces in at a time, so unless you want it to bunch up and stick together forever, you have to take turns. I, inevitably, forget some pieces and burn them. So, because I’m dysfunctional, baking it is the only route. Just don’t burn it. 😛
Yes! I just started baking bacon a few months ago. I’m not a huge fan of bacon… I know.. gasp! I must not be American or something. But I don’t mind Turkey bacon. And my husband of course loves bacon. I love that the bacon smell isn’t too intense and leaves the house quickly.
I cook bacon in the oven on a cooling rack on a cookie sheet. More grease comes off that way.
Smart! I’m going to try that!
You just saved my bacon. Literally. In two ways. I thawed out some bacon for dinner and then realized we couldn’t do the whole ‘breakfast for dinner thing tonight’. What was I supposed to do with the bacon!
I’m gonna cook it like you told me to and not have a mess.
Also, you linked to sandwiches on the bottom of your post and yes! That’s it! Sandwiches for dinner!
You saved my bacon!
Put the bacon on foil on a cold baking sheet in a cold oven then turn to 400 degrees.
I’ve been baking bacon for maaaany years now, I learned to do that when I was a cook at a juvenile delinquent boys home. I’ve passed the idea on to friends and family over the years and they love it. 🙂 IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO GO !! :))
★★★★★
This method is awesome! I will never fry bacon again!