The first key in making the absolute perfect bacon is bacon selection. Although this boils down to preference, please don’t skimp here. You want more meat and less fat. If you want thick cut, paper thin or somewhere in between is up to you, but if it comes down to having a delicious bacon slice once a week, or buying the low end stuff, enjoy your one bacon slice a week, please.
You want your bacon to be cooked equally and thoroughly, crisp but flavorful. This eliminates the ever-so popular pan frying and the lesser popular microwaving. If you are microwaving your bacon, you don’t have time to enjoy it anyway. Save your bacon for a day off, a long weekend or a holiday.
If you are ready to proceed, read on.
This brings us to the oven. Temperatures when cooking bacon can be disputed, and cooking times and temps may vary. I’ve found it’s better to check your bacon too frequently than not enough. If you smell smoke or fire, please start over. Bacon cooks a little bit after you’ve removed it from the oven and crisps further, so it takes a little guess work and patience to get the perfect piece but it’s worth it.
In preparation you will need your bacon, of course which comes many varied ways but that’s up to you. You can season your bacon now if you’d like, peppered bacon is pretty popular around my house.
You will need at least one baking sheet, but preferably a baking sheet and a wire rack or slotted tin that fits inside your first baking sheet. This allows your grease to drip below and keeps your bacon from swimming in its own juice, and having it mess with the texture, resulting in a lot of dabbing and drying on paper towels. I want to taste bacon, not grease, not paper towel, bacon.
Somewhere around 350 or 400 my oven goes. And somewhere between 10-15 minutes I’m keeping my eye on it. I’ve learned that my wife likes her bacon at the ultimate crushing point, where I like a little bit of a chew with a crust. See how serious I am here? Play with it, but the key is the elevated bacon in the oven. Perfectly cooked, perfectly crisped, nice and straight, strips of home cooked bacon. Enjoy.
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