How to Cook Bacon in the Oven (2024)

FAQs

How long should you cook bacon in the oven? ›

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Arrange the bacon in a single layer on 2 aluminum foil-lined rimmed baking sheets, or, for extracrispy bacon, arrange on 2 wire racks set over 2 foil-lined rimmed baking sheets. Bake until the bacon is browned and starts to ripple, or to desired doneness, 10 to 20 minutes.

Bacon should be cooked at 400°F.

Medium-thick bacon slices will need 18 to 20 minutes to reach the perfect level of crispiness. But check the bacon at 10 minutes, and adjust your cooking time to your preferred degree of doneness.

Always cook bacon on foil or parchment paper at 400°F. Cook regular sliced bacon for 14 minutes; thick-cut bacon for 18 minutes. If you cook less than a full sheet of bacon, check after 12 minutes.

But oven-cooked bacon allows you to live your life for 18 minutes or so while the pork does its thing. You don't have to flip it, press it, or shield your kitchen from grease. And if you play your cards right, cleanup will take two minutes, flat.

Prevent oven splatters.

This from Cindy Capps Lepp: Lay a layer of foil over the bacon; this will keep grease from spitting all over the oven. Remove the foil for the last few minutes of cooking for "final crisping."

And it's why you might have some bacon slices that accidentally charcoal a bit too much while other slices are still undercooked. Cooking bacon in the oven cooks all of your bacon slices evenly as the heat surrounds them. They slowly sizzle, don't splatter and end up evenly cooked. It's a beautiful thing.

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.

Is bacon cooked if it's not crispy? Bacon is done when golden brown and has rendered its fat. The shrinkage at this point is about 40%. It may or may not be crispy.

The easiest way to tell is by the color of the pork. Just like with many other types of meat, uncooked bacon will be light pink with white strips of fat. When it's ready to eat, those rosy hues will have darkened to a reddish-brown color, and the fat will morph into a tan or golden shade.

How do you know when bacon is done? Look at it. It should be browned, crisp, and tantalizingly juicy. On the stove or in the oven, most bacon fully cooks within 10-18 minutes.

What not to do when cooking bacon? ›

My Tips For Crispy Results

Instead of placing the bacon directly on the sheet pan, use an oven-safe cooling rack fitted over a rimmed baking sheet. This means it doesn't sit in the grease as it cooks (so the fat drips down) and there is more air flow, which gets you that perfect crispness.

Oven bacon gets just as crispy, if not crispier, and there's very little mess to clean up after. Making a batch of bacon in the oven also means you can do other things while it's cooking.

Just like with many other types of meat, uncooked bacon will be light pink with white strips of fat. When it's ready to eat, those rosy hues will have darkened to a reddish-brown color, and the fat will morph into a tan or golden shade. The other obvious giveaway that your bacon is done is its texture.

Any type of bacon can be cooked in the oven, but I prefer thick cut bacon for this method. Thin bacon tends to turn out quite delicate and can sometimes stick to the wire rack and tear.