Why You Can Trust CNET I've Been Making Bacon Wrong. Here's the Best (and Cleanest) Way to Cook It
Bacon is the crown jewel of breakfast, but it's also messy to cook. Here's the best way to make crispy bacon without splattering the kitchen in grease.
Love bacon but not the mess? Try this method instead.
Frying bacon in a skillet has always been my go-to method. As much as I love the results, making bacon on the stovetop often requires a big cleanup effort afterward. The best way to cook bacon turns out to be in the oven. It's cleaner, requires less effort and attention, and bacon comes out even crispier, especially if you use a rack.
While bacon may never be "healthy," oven bacon cooked with a rack drains more grease and fat from the strips versus frying them in a pool of oil. Cooking bacon in the oven has become my new preferred method, particularly when I'm making an entire package -- and it should be yours, too.
Below, you'll find the simple steps needed to cook perfect bacon in the oven. For more kitchen hacks, you can also check out how to stop food from exploding in the microwave and 10 foods you should never cook in your Instant Pot.
How to cook mess-free bacon in the oven
Here are my tips for cooking perfectly crisp bacon in the oven. Spoiler alert: There aren't many steps, and none of them take very long.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I would avoid air fryer mode if your oven has it since the fast-moving air is more likely to blow grease around the inside. We're aiming for a mess-free scenario.
Line a baking tray with aluminum foil, or use a nonstick sheet pan for a more eco-friendly approach. If you're going the foil route, make sure the edges ride up the sides of the tray so the grease doesn't spill over the sides and down onto the tray.
If you're using nonstick bakeware, I prefer a ceramic sheet pan or tray but Teflon works well, too.
It's fine if the bacon strips touch since they'll shrink and shrivel while cooking.
Arrange bacon on the tray. The strips shouldn't overlap, but it's fine if they touch since they'll shrink down significantly while cooking. If you prefer super crispy bacon with a bit less grease, you can arrange the slices on a wire rack above the tray for the fat to drip down below.
Cook for eight to 10 minutes. Be sure to keep one eye on the bacon as some ovens run hotter than others. If you like your bacon crispy and well done, give it another few minutes. Remember, bacon does a lot of its crisping after it comes out and cools.
Now we're gettin' somewhere.
Drain the bacon on a sheet or two of paper towels. After a few minutes, you're ready to serve those crispy strips with eggs, in a BLT or crumbled to fancy up boxed mac and cheese.
The best part? After cooking bacon in the oven, all you're left with is a small ball of foil to heave effortlessly into the trash.
The best ovens for cooking bacon
For bacon, I love using a smaller countertop convection model. A large oven works just as well but takes longer to preheat and, dang it, we want bacon now.
The Ninja Double Oven and Breville's Smart Oven Air are two multifunction ovens that work well. Both are large enough that bacon grease won't splatter on the ceiling, but are small and powerful enough to preheat quickly and cook bacon to a crisp in under 10 minutes. (We've also got tips for how to clean your cast iron skillet and how to make boxed mac and cheese taste so much better.)