Who doesn’t love bacon? The smell alone is enough to rouse even the most die-hard sleepy head from bed. But who loves the mess? Not me!
There’s an easy way to serve crisp, flat bacon without the mess of a frypan and the splatter of bacon grease on your stove. The bacon gets really crispy with the grease poured off and stays flat. And you can make a lot at one time. Best of all, you can multitask and do other things while the bacon is in the oven.
My son got married this last June and it was the highlight of my year! (I’m a mother-in-law now!) They got married in beautiful Estes Park, CO nestled in the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was also a family reunion for us, as many weddings are. We rented a cabin with a gorgeous view (that’s my niece in the picture below, with a view from our cabin.)
What does this wedding have to do with bacon? The day after the wedding, we invited the whole family on both sides over to our cabin for breakfast. We had over 25 people there, with only the basic cookware provided in the cabin kitchen. But they did have a roasting pan, so I did what any self-respecting blogger would do and followed my own advice…cooked three pounds of bacon in the oven. I didn’t even have parchment paper or anything to cool the bacon on (I ended up using clean cardboard which happened to work better than expected. We were “camping” after all.)
Let me say that I know from experience that this oven method for cooking bacon works very well.
Cooking Bacon in the Oven
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. bacon, or more
- 2-piece slotted pan used for roasting (or jelly roll pan)
- parchment paper
Directions:
Preheat oven 450 degrees F. Place parchment paper on a pan. Place slices of bacon on the pan, place in oven, and bake for about 5 minutes.
For roasting pan: Cut a few small slits in the parchment paper to let the grease run into the bottom of the pan. Turn bacon slices over with tongs and continue baking at 3-minute intervals. Check the bacon and flip until desired crispiness. The total time depends on the amount of bacon and the thickness of the strips.
For jelly roll pan: Open oven and pour off bacon grease into a waiting fry pan for eggs or into a grease jar for use later for cooking. From that point on turn bacon slices over with tongs and bake at 3-minute intervals. Check bacon, pour off grease, and flip until desired crispiness.
Once it is to your liking, place bacon between paper towels with tongs.
For clean up, you can wait until the grease cools and solidifies, then throw the parchment paper into the trash or you can drain off the grease and throw the parchment paper into the trash right away.
Servings: 4 Time: 3 Minutes Preparation Time
20 Minutes Cooking Time
