Baking Bacon – A Test of Two Methods

I love bacon.

Seriously, I was a vegetarian for a decade, and really, between bacon and pepperoni, I could never go back. But I digress.

I HATE frying bacon. It’s messy, it’s hot, it’s flipping and watching for grease and cooking in small batches because even our flat griddle can only handle 4 slices at a time. Screw that, I want to cook the whole package at once.

So I did.

On baking sheets. In the oven. And I will never go back.

But first, I couldn’t decide which method to use.

Have you even pinterested baking bacon? (of course you have, it might even be the way you ended up here)

There are 50 bajillion different ways to cook it- from different degree temps, to different times, to putting it in a cold oven vs an already preheated one to different ways to setup your bacon on the baking sheet. You’re going to have to sift thru the bull and then decide to just wing it.

So I tested the two methods that I thought would be workable in my oven.

Method one – Preheat oven to 400, line baking sheet with parchment paper, put bacon on parchment paper- cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

Method 2- Preheat oven to 400, line baking sheet with tinfoil, put rack on tinfoil, put bacon on rack, cook for 15-20 minutes.

I picked these to methods, because while similar, they are SOOOOO different- and they produced different results.

Here they are tenplus minutes in and I can tell you, that is not cooked. Not even fricken  close.

So, I kept checking and the bacon ended up cooking for closer to 20 minutes before I felt it was cooked enough for our tastes.

So – for real, bacon on the parchment sheet cooked more like the frying pan method. The stuff on the rack was more burning then frying, if that makes sense.

So, I would personally call it for

• parchment paper lined baking sheet, no rack
• 400 degrees- preheated
• 20 minutes cook time.

Bonus if you like your bacon more floppy then crispy.

Let your excess grease drain into some paper towels, store the cooled bacon in the fridge in an air tight container and you can have bacon for up to 4 days, hassle free.

Until next time, have a wicked good day!