Baked Bacon Recipe – How to Bake Bacon Two Ways

True confession: I love bacon. I love bacon, eggs, and homemade buttermilk pancakes for Saturday morning breakfasts, I love bacon in salads, on pizza, in sandwiches (yum, BLTs), and well, you get the idea. You’ll find that plenty of my recipes include bacon.

But I don’t love making it. Frying it on my stove top always makes a big greasy mess that’s a pain to clean up. Plus, have you ever been hit by a burning hot splatter of bacon grease? Ouch! It almost makes me not want to make bacon. Almost. 

But here’s a news flash: you don’t have to fry bacon. In fact, there’s a much easier method to cook bacon: you bake it! 

Easy Baked Bacon

Perfect strips and no flipping. When you bake bacon, you get nice flat bacon slices every time. You don’t even have to flip it over. It will be perfectly crisp every time.

Easiest clean-up. The bacon is baked in the oven on a rimmed baking pan lined with foil, which you can just throw away afterwards right along with the bacon grease. It’s o easy and no splatters of grease on the stove or on you!

Two ways to do it. You can bake it with a wire rack or without (that’s the two ways). The results are nearly the same. I usually bake it right on the foil without a rack but if you want the bacon grease to drain away from the bacon as it bakes, a wire rack works well.

Are you convinced yet? I hope so because baked bacon is a game changer in my mind. I’m not sure I will ever go back to frying bacon strips. Besides, isn’t it kind of fun to say “baked bacon?” P.S. If you’re looking for another quick way to cook bacon, try air fryer bacon. That method is particularly good for small batches of bacon.

Ingredient Notes

I like to buy center cut bacon because there is usually less fat. Choose what you like best. Thick sliced bacon will take slightly longer to bake than thin cut bacon.

How To Bake Bacon

Line a large rimmed baking pan with foil. Use heavy duty foil or two layers of regular foil. Make sure the foil goes right up the sides of the pan to ensure that the bacon grease doesn’t seep underneath. You don’t want that to happen because it will mean more clean up time. Parchment paper is a good alternative to foil.

Add a wire rack (optional). If you want to use a wire rack, set it in the baking pan and spray it lightly with cooking spray. The advantages of using a rack are that much of the grease will drip down off the bacon into the pan, leaving very little on the bacon. Less grease means fewer calories. Using a rack also results in slightly straighter, flatter bacon slices. 

Arrange the bacon. Separate the strips and place them either directly on the foil or on the baking rack, trying not to have them touch each other (kind of sounds like my kids in the back seat–he touched me, no I didn’t, she touched me! Sound familiar?).

Bake. Place the pan in a preheated oven or a cold oven. The bacon will turn out either way but it will take slightly longer in a cold oven. Bake it approximately 25 minutes. There’s no need to flip the bacon at all, not even once. It will crisp perfectly, both on a rack or not on a rack.

Drain on paper towels. Using tongs, remove the bacon from the pan and place it on paper towels to drain. If I’m feeling particularly health-conscious, I pat the tops of the bacon with more paper towels to blot up some of the excess grease. 

Clean up. All you’ll need to do is remove the foil from the pan and toss it in the trash. Usually I don’t even have to wash the baking pan. If you used a rack, you will have to wash that (hopefully it will fit in your dishwasher!).

Option 1: Without a wire rack

Option 2: With a wire rack

Make-Ahead Idea

Cook a whole pound of bacon even it you’re not planning on using that much. Store what you don’t use in the refrigerator or freezer. It thaws out quickly and is ready to use in recipes. For ways to use baked bacon, check out the recipes below.

Storage & Reheating Tips

Refrigerate/freeze: After baked bacon has drained and cooled, put it in a zip-top bag in the refrigerator or freezer to use at a later date. In the refrigerator, it should last 4 to 5 days and in the freezer for 3 to 4 months. 

Reheat: It doesn’t take long to thaw, 10 minutes at the most. Reheat it in the oven or toaster oven for 5 minutes or microwave briefly, 15 seconds. If you’re using it in a recipe, you can use it right from the refrigerator or freezer.

Recipes That Use Bacon

Here are a few recipes for that delicious bacon (unless you plan to eat it all right from the oven which is always a temptation!):

• Ricotta flatbread with bacon, squash, apples and maple pepitas (a delicious fall festival of flavors)
• BBQ chicken pizza
• Creamy loaded potato salad (with bacon and hard boiled eggs)
• Green beans with bacon, garlic, and onion (you’ll never look at plain green beans again)
• Bacon cheddar quiche with sweet potato crust
• Broccoli salad with bacon