Are there other good methods of cooking bacon besides on the stove?
Looking for some creative ways to cook bacon.
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Answers ( 1 )
Like bacon itself, choosing the best way to cook it elicits passionate responses about the best methods. Stovetop pan-frying is probably the best-known method, but there are certainly other methods that work very well (and a number that work less well but acceptably for some uses). Here are a few of the ways you can cook bacon:
- As the famous commercial jingle suggests, the most common way to cook up your porky feast after bringing home the bacon is to fry it up in a pan*. A cast iron skillet works really well for this, but you can use almost any type of pan. This method is classic, and yields good results, being both fast and imparting really good flavor. Its main drawbacks are that it makes a bit of a mess, and the level of crispness can vary over various strips and parts of the bacon. So you've got to pay lots of attention and keep the bacon moving around the pan. In general, using a non-stick pan will work as well as a cast iron pan, but the bacon is a little more crisp and has less chew. Preferences between the two are subjective.
So on to the non-stove methods:
- You can definitely cook bacon in the oven, on a variety of surfaces. Placing bacon directly on a sheet pan yields excellent results. It takes a bit longer than the stovetop method (about 5-10 minutes longer in cook time, plus the amount of time it takes your oven to preheat), but cleanup is fairly easy. If you don't want to mess up a sheet pan, you can use foil or even parchment paper to line the pan, making cleanup really easy.
- You can also cook bacon in a microwave oven. And the results are crisper than you'd expect. Even though you'd think it would yield flabby bacon, microwaving can produce some of the crispest results out there. And it's super fast. Just place the bacon on a plate between sheets of paper towel and nuke it for a few minutes. You can remove the top towel for the last minute, once most of the grease has been absorbed. Depending on your oven, you may have to experiment to find the perfect amount of time.
So really the best way to cook bacon depends on the texture you like best, how much you care about cleanup, and how much speed matters to you. But there are definitely ways to cook bacon other than the stovetop.
*Note: Some people like to cook bacon in water on the stovetop, and then keep cooking until the water evaporates off and then let it get crisp. This is somewhat similar to the traditional stovetop method, but preserves moisture more. I also think this method is a bit more trouble than it's worth, but it works.