How to Bake Bacon and Other Time Saving Tips for the Kitchen
Bacon is one of the quintessential Saturday morning foods.
Learn baking bacon will yield perfectly crispy, mess-free bacon with your Saturday morning breakfast.
I am all about time-savers in the kitchen.
One of my favorite time-savers in the kitchen is to bake bacon in the oven.
If you’ve never heard of baking bacon before you might wonder why you would do that rather than cooking it the traditional way on the stove.
My favorite aspect of this method of cooking bacon is that it doesn’t make a mess all over my stove top.
Especially now that we are in our new house – the stovetop is stainless and it is a bit more challenging to clean (and keep clean without streak marks everywhere) than my old black range was.
The next favorite plus to this method is that when I bake bacon, I don’t have time to babysit it on the stove as I flip each piece to ensure even cooking.
Nor do I have to worry about myself, or anyone else for that matter, getting painfully splattered with hot grease when the bacon is safely cooking away in the oven.
Baking bacon makes it so much easier to prepare and frees up my hands to accomplish other tasks that need my attention – in or out of the kitchen.
Or maybe you’re wondering something else all together, like how to bake bacon.
I didn’t know how to do this at first either.
Honestly, I never paid attention to the packaging, which I realized years later – actually does tell you that it can be cooked in the oven.
DUH.
Who would have thought that reading the instructions would actually prove useful.
Have you ever baked your bacon before?
Or am I the only one that this was a new technique for until a couple of years ago.
I tell you, whoever originally figured this baking bacon thing out is basically pure genius.
No splatters on the stove.
No babysitting and flipping the bacon.
No mess.
No fuss.
Perfectly cooked bacon every time.
How to Bake Bacon – 5 Steps to Perfect Baked Bacon
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper if you like.
Cooking bacon in oven on parchment paper ensures the bacon doesn’t get stuck to the pan and it also makes clean up a little bit easier.
Foil works, too.
3. Place the bacon on the lined baking sheet.
You can lay them pretty close together, but you’ll want to make sure none of the bacon strips are overlapping.
You don’t want to bake bacon only to end up with all the stuck together after the baking is complete.
Unless maybe you are doing that on purpose, and then please do tell what you plan on doing with the bacon quilt – I am totally curious!
4. Place the baking sheet in the oven on a rack positioned in the middle position.
5. Plan to bake bacon for approximately 15-20 minutes, though I recommend keeping an eye on it the first time as oven temperatures do vary.
Additionally, bacon thickness (like if you are trying to cook extra thick cut bacon in the oven) or if you like your bacon extra crispy (or less crispy) all play a role in the cooking time.
More Time-Saving Kitchen Tips
This year has been quite the busy year for our family.
Even though we are settled in our new home our life has not seemed to get any simpler or less busy, but perhaps that is just the way life is now with 4 kiddos in the mix.
I’m always on the lookout for extra ways to save some time, especially with the cooking process.
Now that I’ve told you all about baking bacon, here are a few of my other favorite time saving techniques.
Whenever we make cookies we make extra dough to freeze and use throughout the coming weeks.
Less mess to clean up when the dough is only prepared once. Less time spent mixing up batter.
Homemade Buttermilk Substitute
Zero time spent going to the store to buy an ingredient that I am out of when I can easily whip up a substitution at home.
Love the short-cut method for baking perfect baked potatoes when I’m in a rush to get dinner on the table.
Top them with steamed broccoli and cheddar cheese or leftover chili for a super fast dinner.
This tip for filling muffin tins quickly and evenly (which greatly helps with baking times and ensuring that each muffin is done at the same time) is a favorite for sure.
Stuffed Pasta – The Easy Way! – This trick makes stuffed shells and manicotti a breeze – not just easy, but super quick and totally less messy.
How to Freeze and Reheat Pancakes and Waffles
We can enjoy a delicious hot breakfast on even the busiest of mornings or save the day for a quick “breakfast for dinner” when the most time consuming portion is already done.
Have you ever made bacon in the oven before?
Favorite Kitchen Tips
Homemade Buttermilk
Out of buttermilk? No worries! Learn all about common buttermilk substitutes as well as how to make easy homemade buttermilk.
How to Freeze Cookie Dough
Cookie dough freezes extremely well and is the perfect sweet treat to keep stashed in your freezer to instantly satisfy those sweet tooth cravings.
Kitchen Tip: How to Make Non-Stick Foil at Home
Learn how easy it is to make non-stick foil at home! Is there anything more annoying than pulling a delicious, baked casserole out of the oven and removing the foil off of the dish to find only to find that that half of the cheese (or more) has stuck all over the foil?
Kitchen Tip: Caring for Cast Iron Cookware
Caring for cast iron cookware might seem like a chore, but it is a chore that doesn't take as much time as you'd think and is honestly completely worth the time. The first step in caring for a new cast iron pan is seasoning.
How To Cut Butter into Flour
4 different ways to cut butter into flour for recipes like pie crusts or biscuits. The 4th way on this list is my all time favorite kitchen tips is this trick for cutting butter into flour!
Perfect Homemade Bacon Bits
Perfect Homemade Bacon Bits are super easy to make at home, and way better tasting than store-bought!
How to Freeze Grapes for Snacks and Smoothies
Can you freeze grape might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about grapes. But, the good news is that you can! Frozen grapes make a great addition to smoothies as well as a healthy, cold snack during summer.
Perfect Baked Potato
Follow these simple tips to learn how to bake a potato, whether you are short on time or have plenty of time. There are two fool-proof methods that answer the question of how to bake a potato: a traditional baked potato in oven or a time saving method where you microwave potatoes before baking, then follow up with the oven.
Easy Homemade Croutons
How to make croutons at home! Who needs expensive bags of store-bought croutons when you can make them exactly how you like them.
How to Separate Eggs
Sometimes you might come across a recipe that requires eggs plus additional yolks or whites. Learning how to separate eggs is important if you want to bake up angel food cakes, macarons, macaroons and meringues.
Easy Peel Hard Boiled Eggs
Follow these simple instructions for hard boiled eggs that turn out perfectly every time.
How to Measure Partial Eggs
One of my favorite kitchen tips is how to measure partial eggs because it comes in handy when you're making adjustments to recipes.
Jill says
Great tip, I only recently learned that you can bake shrimp and cheese sandwiches in the oven too!!
Emily says
I love baking bacon because I don’t have to stand over the pan and flip the bacon. Also, no dishes to wash! I just throw the foil away. The only problem is my husband doesn’t like the taste of bacon from the oven so I only bake the bacon if I’m going to put it in something else, like a quiche. Any suggestions for making bacon from the oven taste as crispy and good as bacon from the skillet? Thanks!
Fulton says
I love bakin bacon. Fun tricks: if you use foil, as mentioned above, you can make the strips stick together systematically for sammiches. Foil is also perfect for candied bacon – just add some brown sugar and maple syrup halfway thru. Combine trick one and trick two to make AWESOME pancake breakfast sammiches.
Erica Reinhart says
great tips! very helpful and time saving tips!
Marie says
Love this. I featured it on Make and Takes. And I’ll be baking some bacon today. Can’t wait!!
kim says
I have been baking my bacon for maybe a year now but I put the cookie cooling racking on a cookie sheet then put the bacon on that. It cuts the fat a bit by not sitting in the fat while it’s cooking and I cook it at 350 for about 20 min. and there isn’t a mess in the oven because I cook it slower, just be super careful taking it out of the oven not to spill the grease on you or into the oven when taking it out. I made a huge mess the last time I cooked it because I didn’t use both hand 🙁
Julia says
What a great post on time saving tips! I am going to use a few of these.
Julia
Clare says
Amazing—it’s like they say, you know you’re a woman when you do things while waiting for the microwave to ring. Anything that can save even a couple of minutes is useful. Thanks!
Gina Rau says
This is a great tip! We’ve been baking our bacon in the oven with parchment paper for years thanks to my husband. He got so tired of mopping up the grease splatter on our glossy black stove that he tried baking it one day. So much easier and the clean up is a snap!
Keep the kitchen tips coming!
terri says
Love this idea, been doing it for a few years now. I also cook bacon on the bbq.
a-man says
This time saver method is a good idea. Is there any difference in taste or consistency between oven and pan bacon?
Thank you!
Kathy F. says
I have been baking bacon for a few years now and I always line my pan with foil – NO clean up that way plus I can save the grease for later use if I prefer.
Norma says
so does this not splatter all over your oven?
Jennifer G says
I have had trouble in the past cooking bacon this high and fast. For me, 350 for about 40 minutes works great and doesn’t set off my smoke alarms (which happened in 3 different apartments before I learned to lower the temp and slow the cooking time…definition of insanity???). And as I usually fry a whole pound at a time, it doesn’t really take any longer than standing in front of the frying pan…except that I don’t have to stand in front of the frying pan 🙂
Jillian {Her Split Ends} says
I Love making bacon in the oven…so much easier and less mess…BUT i always hate cleaning the pan afterwards. Never thought about using parchment paper…brilliant!! Thanks!
Cheers
~ Jillian
http://www.hersplitends.com
Katelyn says
I use foil under mine. If I’m careful to overlap the edge of the pan, no grease gets out and I can wrap it all up in the foil when done and have a clean pan too!
Aimee @ Simple Bites says
Loved your list of time-savers, Katie. They all add up – I just have to remember to implement them!