A few years ago my friend Ginger told me she’d started cooking bacon in the oven. I said “Really?” She quickly convinced me I should too.
I don’t recall what temperature she said to use, but I’m usually in a hurry and set my oven to 400 degrees and put the pan in as it pre-heats. Ginger used parchment paper as a liner on the pan and I did for the first several times, but quickly started using just the bare pan.
It takes about 15 minutes for the bacon to cook to our liking, but you need to play around with the timing to adjust to your preferred bacon crispiness. And just like when you’re frying bacon, it can quickly get over done so you need to keep an eye on it.
The bacon fat and little crispy pieces easily pour out of the pan if you’d like to save it for later use or pour it in a frying pan to make gravy.
Ginger was right about how easy it is to cook bacon in the oven and that’s pretty much the only way I cook it these days.
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Hi Tipper love your videos & emails I get I lived in Cincinnati, Ohio most of my life but Dad was from Jackson, Ky. & Mom Hazard, Ky. I was born in Hazard as we lived in a Coal mining camp & I grew up spending summers in both places Granny & Mamaw so with Mom’s cooking I grew up on most of what you cook, they got everything they could from the garden, and I’ve always cooked the same way, always looking to learn new things & I got copies of all of their old recipes & made them in nicer printed version & made recipe files for all 4 of my Kids to pass them all on. As far as cooking bacon in an oven, around 2010 I worked at a Marriott Hotel in downtown Cincinnati, they had a nice restaurant with a 5* Chef they got from Chicago & they served a breakfast buffet 6 days a week, & so a lot of bacon, they would line huge baking trays with long wide strip of bacon & fill racks full of them, nearly 50 of these large trays full each night, they would place them in the Walk-in Freezer & Cover them overnight. The next morning they would salt them just a little & bake them all, and it was the best Bacon I’ve ever had, I still fry on occasion but Baking it was always my favorite & the way I do my bacon most often.
Instead of laying them down in single slices, I like to lay them down as doubles & flip after they brown on the top. Have to watch them as they’ll burn quick.
I started cooking mine in the oven a number of years ago just because I don’t like the grease splatter all over the top of my stove. Cooking bacon in the oven also allows it to be straighter for BLTs. I put a piece of foil on the bottom of a full sheet pan so I can cook the whole pack of bacon at once. I then cover the bacon with foil and in my oven I bake it at around 400 to 450. The bacon comes out just crispy enough. I drain off the grease into my grease can and put the bacon on a paper towel lined plate.
If I’m just cooking bacon to eat, I’ll line my pan with ‘non-stick’ aluminum foil (best thing since sliced bread)and put them in a cold oven so it cooks while it heats up. Then I save the grease. But if I’m cooking bacon to add to a dish then I’ll fry it in my old trust Wagner Ware #10 iron skillet.
Speakin’ of, I have been ‘collecting’ ironware (skillets, kettles, Dutch ovens etc.) for quite a few years. I’ve got some good pieces but my #10 Wagner is better than one of those fancy non-stick coating skillets.
I have let ya’ll know that so much of your dialect and customs put me back to my childhood.
I believe in my heart that you and your family God put here to make people smile, to give folks Hope. Lots of things have gone crooked in this world of ours nowadays. But your music, your philosophy, love of family and friends and keeping the good things in this world that otherwise would only be memories that eventually get lost, you keep it in the here and now. It’s the Harmony those beautiful feelings create that keep this earth turning the right way.
Thank you, the Girls, The Deer Hunter and Granny, for never failing to bring a tear or two of joy to my eyes.
God Bless and keep you all!
Walt-thank you so much!!
I cook my bacon in the oven now, mostly because I hate cleaning up a greasy cooktop. I cook with gas, and my stove is brand new, so I have to take the grates off and everything. It’s much easier to cook it in the oven on a sheet pan lined with aluminum foil, so cleanup is a snap. Also, I also use only heavy aluminum foil. The thin stuff is an abomination.
I have never tried fixing bacon this way so I will have to try it. I always fix mine in the microwave. It’s not a mess for me because of the pan I use. It catches all the grease and I just pour it out.
Seems like it would spatter and make a mess of the oven. And I hate to clean ovens.
Ive been craving bacon! Funny how things like this come up to remind me of how delicious bacon is! Thanks for the reminder!
I’ve been baking bacon for some time now, I usually cover with parchment paper to keep the splatter down and put it on a rack in an edged baking pan,no sticking to the bottom. I recently heard that rinsing the bacon in cold water makes it cook more evenly and less curling and shrinkage. Tried it once seems to work!
Good to be back on your blog 🙂
SuzyJ-glad to have you back!!
You have a beautiful blog and You Tube presence. I love the food, the music, nature, your family, everything. Thank you. It warms my heart, all of it!!!!
Thanks for the tips on using parchment to hold down the splatter, the rack, and rinsing. I’ll have to try all your baking bacon tips!
Yes! I converted a few years back. The bacon usually comes out flat which I like and the drippings pour out of the pan easily into a jar. It sure beats standing at the stove cooking a big batch for the family. And I think the drippings come out a bit better and clearer. And I alway have the drippings to whip up a quick batch of milk gravy that I love over biscuits or even toast. My grandmother taught me to make gravy that is white as the driven snow. I’ve never really cared for the darker gravy that’s made from browning the flour longer. Tipper, have you ever written a post about the different types of country gravy? I’ve just started reading your blog in the last month or so and I love it.
Crystal-I haven’t, but that would be a good post 🙂
I love love milk gravy. I make it a lot but can’t say its white as the driven snow. Would you care to share your recipe for that. Love also that it was your grandmother that taught you how.
I have been amazed at number of people who throw the bacon grease out. someone was even trying to market a can to make it easier to throw it out without a mess. Recently an article on Facebook was making fun of people who had bacon grease in their fridge.
These people must eat out all the time. I love to add bacon grease to grits when they are cooking and to soup esp. potato.
We cook bacon in the oven sometimes especially if we need a lot. Mama always said to get the fattiest bacon we could find as the flavor is in the fat. Mr. Ammon’s comment about rendering his bacon fat reminded me of it.
My whole family loves fat back but it is almost impossible to find and is never very good. I guess we need to find someone processing a very fat pig! We all would beg Mama to make a pan of biscuits and fry up some fatback.
Wanda, I can get good fatback from a meat market near me. He only sells pork. I love fried fatback, milk gravy and biscuits. My mother’s family called this gravy hunky do gravy. Since my wife passed away I don’t think I will be eating this very much anymore.
My husband heard about baking bacon at 400 degrees and we started doing it years ago too. He loved bacon!! I like the way you can cook so much of it and it isn’t as messy as the skillet or microwave. I didn’t know you could freeze some of the baked bacon in zip lock bags. I will certainly try that method too.
I cook mine like this also. If you shake the bacon in flour it doesn’t seem to shrink as much.
I have been cooking bacon in the oven for many years. I cook the whole packsge and freeze what’s not needed. Reheat in microwave. In just seconds I have bacon for guests or for use in other dishes. My hair doesn’t smell like bacon and the mess is minimal.
I cook my bacon in the oven at 190ºF. I get the fattiest bacon I can find and it on a stainless steel rack in a half sheet pan. I cook it for however long it takes to render the fat. I pour the grease through a fine mesh strainer into glass jars and after cooling into the freezer or refrigerator. What’s left on the rack, if it’s not too dry, gets crumbled into cornbread batter, an omelet, a salad, etc. I use the rendered fat sparingly for frying, in cornbread or as a seasoning in beans. I rarely eat bacon like normal people.
The spatter you get and the sizzle you hear when cooking bacon is the water inside the meat turning to steam and exploding. Our ancestors cured bacon by packing it in combinations of salt, sugar and black pepper. Their method was called dry curing because the salt drew the water out of the meat. Now, for the most part, it is brined in and injected with a solution of water, salt and preservatives. So a lot of what you buy now is just water.
If you have access to real home cured bacon you are the lucky one. I don’t! But I’m still looking!
Until you find home cured, the next best thing is the Blue and Gold bacon our FFA school kids sell. In my opinion, it’s just as good as what I remember coming out of our of the smokehouse. Does anyone still “dress” their own hogs? I can remember lifting the shot hog up with a “single tree” and lowering it down into a 55 gallon drum of scalding water with a fire going underneath. Then they scraped the hair off…don’t remember much after that other than it was fall and they’d keep the fire just so-so in the smoke house. That and dressing chickens always made me toss my cookies.
I have cooked bacon in the oven at a lower temp but found it doesn’t cook evenly that way. The pieces to the outside of the pan get overdone while the middle pieces are not cooked enough. Do you have that problem cooking at 400?
Ava-My pan is sort of wonky 🙂 so the strips I put at the bottom do get done faster than the ones on the other end because my pan is uneven. I keep a check on the bacon as it cooks and take out the pieces as they get done.
My grandkids love bacon and my daughter hates to fix it because of the mess. The stovetop and microwave cooking method covers everything in grease as the bacon cooks. I have never used the oven for cooking bacon but it sounds like the easiest clean-up.
My friend Ruby told me about putting bacon in the oven. I was shocked at the ease and delighted not to smell like bacon personally. I do think my oven has taken on a stinch like bacon though. I give it a clean with Scrubbing Bubbles—- the appliance easy cleaner that does wonders on a dirty fridge, stove or dishwasher. They will gleam!!!! Btw, I’m pretty certain bacon is it’s own amazing food group!!!! I LOVE BACON!!!
I like to bake bacon when we gave company.
Love you daily sharing ❣️
Have a Blessed Day
Carolyn
Thanks Tipper!…..What do you cover the bacon with so it doesn’t pop all over your oven?
Rick-the popping doesn’t seem to be an issue. Maybe because I don’t notice as much 🙂
Thanks Tipper!…..My normal way of cooking it is simple, clean and no mess…..From what I’ve read in the comments here about mess and odors, I think I’ll stick to my method…..Here it is for those who may be interested…..I start with a microwave safe dish or pan…..For the smaller bowl like ceramic pan I use, I fold anywhere from 2-4 small sheets of good paper towels on the bottom to absorb grease……If I want to save most of the grease I don’t cover the bottom…..I then cut the pound of bacon into two halves for ease of fitting in the container…..I layer 4 half strips of bacon on the bottom towels….Then I cover those with two layers of paper towels and add four more strips covering those with a single layer of paper towels……This works well for one person wanting 4 strips of bacon….I don’t cover the pan with a lid as the towels prevent spatter in the microwave….I cook that for 3 to four minutes, sometimes longer for thicker bacon…..Check it for doneness and set it on the sink immediately separating paper from bacon…..If you wait too long the bacon will stick to the paper towels…..As I separate, I put the saturated paper in the sink and as soon as it cools a little I put it in a trash bag to take outside to the garbage can to reduce/eliminate smells!….Good luck!
Well, that just simplifies cooking bacon! Bacon is actually one of my all time favorites foods. I don’t eat it much these days but it’s still a favorite.
I’m wondering, is that a dedicated pan? I mean is bacon all you cook in it? Does it stick to the pan like it sometimes does in a skillet? Do you have to turn it over?
Thanks for sharing the tip, Tip!
Miss Cindy-It doesn’t usually stick to the pan. I do sometimes turn it over in an effort to hurry it along 🙂 I always use the same pan, not because I need to just because that’s the pan I like 🙂
Amen, I am so glad someone else does it this way! We buy it from a big box store 2 lbs at a time and I cook it all. Another handy tip is: you can put the pieces in a zip lock bag in the freezer and use them a piece at a time when you need them. The single strips thaw immediately and you can microwave to your preferred crispiness.
I have been doing that for years and love the fact there is no mess . In the summer I put the pan on the grill and close the lid.