In my early 20’s I worked in a commercial kitchen where I learned how to cook perfectly crispy bacon in big batches with next to no effort. The trick? We cooked the bacon in the oven. Cooking bacon in the oven means no splattering grease, no standing over a hot skillet, and you get perfectly flat and evenly cooked bacon every time. Realizing that bacon didn’t have to be cooked in a splattering skillet was one of those 🤯 moments. So if you’ve never tried this easy trick for cooking bacon in the oven, you’ve got to give it a try!
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Why Cook Bacon In the Oven
Cooking bacon in the oven has become my go-to method because there are several benefits over cooking bacon in a skillet. Here are some of the advantages:
- It’s hands-free. You just pop it in the oven and it does its thing with no need to flip or babysit the bacon as it cooks. You’re free to use your hands to cook eggs, toast, or whatever else you’re making for breakfast.
- It’s easier to batch cook. You can cook more bacon at one time in the oven than in in a skillet, which makes it perfect for feeding a crowd or if you’re meal prepping.
- The bacon cooks flat. If you plan on using your bacon for sandwiches, wraps, or anything where you need the bacon to be less curly, baking it in the oven is the way to go. It also cooks extremely evenly.
- There’s less mess. When you bake bacon in the oven the splatter is contained within the oven, which means no greasy countertops to clean up afterwards or hot grease burning your skin. To reduce the splatter inside the oven, you can lay a loose piece of parchment over the bacon as it bakes.
What Temperature For Bacon in the Oven
To cook bacon in the oven, 400ºF is the best temperature. The high heat helps yield crispier bacon slices. Thick-cut bacon will take about 15-20 minutes to cook at 400ºF, but the exact time can vary. Make sure to check the bacon after 15 minutes and add time depending on your desired level of crispiness. For thinner bacon strips, check after 10 minutes and add time as needed.
Tips for Crispy Oven-Baked Bacon
To make sure you get the most delicious and crispy bacon in the oven, follow these tips:
- Use a wire rack. Elevating the bacon above the grease allows it to drain away as it cooks and keeps the bacon crispy. For chewier bacon, skip the wire rack.
- Use foil for easy clean-up. Foil captures the grease as it cooks and allows you to easily pour it into a storage container for later use.
- Fully preheat the oven. Make sure the oven has preheated for at least 10-15 minutes so the bacon gets a fast hot blast of air. This helps the bacon crisp up nicely.
- Use thick-cut bacon. While you can bake thin cut bacon, it can become quite delicate when baked. Cooking thick-cut bacon in the oven yields a deliciously crispy bacon with a nice crunch.
What to Serve with Bacon
Make your breakfast complete with Homemade Biscuits, Cheese Grits, and maybe some Scrambled Eggs with Spinach and Feta. Or go classic with a simple fried egg!
How to Use Leftover Bacon Grease
Leftover bacon grease is pure gold. It adds SO MUCH flavor to whatever you use it with. You can pretty much use it to cook anything in place of butter. Try some of these yummy uses for your bacon grease:
- To fry potatoes or eggs
- Use to sauté greens, like kale, spinach, or even green beans
- Make stove top popcorn
- Spread on your bread when making grilled cheese
- Use in place of butter in Fried Cabbage with Noodles
How to Cook Bacon in the Oven
Servings 10 slicesIngredients
- 12 oz. thick cut bacon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Prepare a large baking sheet by lining it with aluminum foil and then placing one or two wire racks on top to hold the bacon above the surface of the baking sheet.
- Lay the strips of bacon across the wire rack so they are close, but not overlapping.
- Bake the bacon in the fully preheated oven, for 20-25 minutes*, or until it has reached your desired level of crispiness. Begin checking the bacon at 15 minutes, as ovens can vary.
- After baking, use tongs to remove the strips of bacon from the wire rack to a paper towel lined plate. Serve immediately.
- Allow the remaining bacon grease to cool for about ten minutes, then pour off into a bowl or jar, and reserve for another use.
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Equipment
- Enamelware Sheet Pan
- Wire Cooling Racks
- Enamelware Dinner Plate
Notes
Nutrition
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How to Cook Bacon in the Oven – Step by Step Photos
First preheat the oven to 400ºF. Prepare a sheet pan by covering it with foil and placing one or two wire racks on top.
Lay the slices of bacon out on the wire rack so they are close, but not overlapping.
Bake the bacon in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes (for thick cut bacon), or until it reaches your desired level of crispiness. Begin checking the bacon at 15 minutes, so you’re aware of its progress (every oven is different). I like mine extra brown and crispy, so I let mine go closer to 25 minutes. If you’re cooking thin bacon, begin checking the doneness after 10 minutes.
Although most of the grease drains away as the bacon is baked in the oven, some will pool on the top, so I still use tongs to transfer the cooked bacon to a paper towel lined plate.
Let the bacon grease cool for about 10 minutes on the foil so that it’s still liquid, but not burning hot. Then pull up the sides of the foil to capture the grease, and pour it off into a bowl or jar.
Cover or close the container with the grease and refrigerate until you decide what food will be graced with its presence. If you strain out the small bits of bacon and debris the bacon grease can last months in the refrigerator. But I know I’ll use it quickly, so I don’t bother to strain!
Crispy oven-baked bacon perfection!!
This is the best way by far to cook bacon. Turns out perfect every time: my secret is to break eggs on the pan after I’ve taken out the rack and the bacon, skip it back in the oven for a minute or two, and you have perfectly cooked over easy eggs, and one less pan to wash. You can put the rack back on top of the eggs with toast on top, and make a big batch of toast as well.
This is a great way to cook bacon! Since I live alone, I don’t use more than two slices at a time. Instead of having all that extra bacon sitting around where I can grab a piece out of the fridge to snack on (I love bacon!), I cook it until it’s almost done and put it in the freezer. When I need bacon, I can take out however much I need and stick it in the microwave to cook till it’s nice and crisp.
I haven’t tried it yet but I’m at least going to check it halfway through 10 minutes because I don’t want it burnt and the person who burnt up all their bacon without double checking it. Come on ovens are different beacon different plus where you live reflects on the cooking. Commen sense people
I had to cook for a baby shower for 40 guests and this oven hack for bacon made my life SO much easier!
Cooked the bacon for 20 minutes at 400 and it was completely burnt. Had to throw out. This recipe could be shortened to one sentence: cook bacon at 400 for 20 minutes. Why is this a term paper? And why is it completely wrong?? Used up all my bacon. I’m pissed off
Does this not get super Smokey?
No it never has for us!
Very good it’s so easy, a person may expect something difficult to do. However not, I
dunno like most recipes follow the instructions and advice from another person. And oh wow you can actually cook when all the time that said person always claimed that they can’t cook.
I have never made bacon in the oven, until this morning. It turned out great and there wasn’t any huge greasy mess to clean up. I’m glad I stumbled across your blog. Can’t wait to try your delicious looking recipes.
Mmmmmm….good.
Thank you for your help
what level in the oven?
The middle :)
I’ve been looking at your site for just over a week now and this is one of the first recipes I’ve tried. I LOVE it! It’s hassle free and not nearly as messy as pan frying. I spruced our bacon up with a bit of cracked pepper and sprinkle of brown sugar and everything came out amazing. 😋
I love the bacon in the oven idea but I wonder how much oven cleaning is needed afterwards?
Great idea! Do you know how long we can keep bacon grease in the frig? There are people that keep bacon grease in the cupboard or on the counter.
I don’t know off hand, unfortunately, I’d need to look that up. :)
Thanks Alot For Having a Look on It.
This is a total game-changer! I’ve tried it a couple of times now, and it’s worked perfectly every time. I like my (thick-cut) bacon a little on the chewier side, so about 15 minutes is perfect. No more oil splatters on me or on the stove! :D
It’s a really amazing recipe. I like your recipe. Must be I am going to try this. It looks also gorgeous. Thank you so much for sharing these tips.
Looks delicious. I am going to try this today. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
I actually cook bacon in the microwave. I put 2 paper towels on a plate, line up the strips, add 2 more paper towels on the top, and microwave for about 2 min at a time until it gets really brown and crispy – usually takes 4-5 rounds. There’s no spatter, the paper towels absorb the grease which you then just toss in the trash, and the bacon tastes even better than oven-baked, IMO.
What is the baking sheet and rack you are using here? I don’t see it on your Amazon page. It looks like it’s enameled and would hold up really well over time. Thanks!
It’s from Rove & Swig!
I use a small Breville toaster oven. I’ve been baking bacon for several years. For mine, 290 degrees for about 43-45 minutes for regular Hormel Black Label Original is perfect. I use no rack and cook on baking paper. I can cook it from frozen or fresh out of the package. I prepare slices for freezing by placing baking paper in between each serving., then into a freezer bag. On mornings I want bacon I just take a layer/serving out, put in a small oven pan on the paper on which it was frozen, pop it into the oven, go take my shower, etc., and the bacon is ready right on time and perfectly cooked.
I’ve tried doing bacon like this in the oven, but it never seems to get crispy! What am I do wrong? The bacon I use is NOT thick cut, and I even leave it in longer for multiple increments of 10 minutes, and still, not crispy. I line the pan with foil and put it on cooling racks on the pan to cook in the over. I’m so confused…is there something I am missing?
Have you ever used an oven thermometer? It’s a small cheap thermometer you can get at any grocery store, you put in the oven to make sure the temperature is correct. Sometimes ovens can be off by 10 degrees! That can make a really big difference.
I’ve been doing this for several years now. I usually bake two pounds at a time, one each on a large sheet pan lined with parchment paper (no wire rack). I use metal binder clips to affix the parchment to the pan; just make sure the paper comes up the sides of the pan. Because I don’t use racks, I do flip my bacon a couple of times while it cooks, and I move the racks from top to bottom and the reverse so they brown well. When the bacon is done, I remove it to a plate lined with paper towels. I don’t keep the bacon fat, so I absorb some of it with some wads of paper towel. After everything is slightly cooled, I remove the clips, fold the paper in on itself, and throw it out. The bacon freezes nicely on layers of wax paper in a sealed plastic container.
Hi Beth. I enjoyed your post on How To Cook Bacon in the Oven. I found it very interesting and helpful. I like bacon but cooking it messy with the grease. Like you sometimes I would pass on it. I will try the oven following the instructions you provided. Thank you Beth for your post. Another helpful idea how to use the grease afterwards. Currently I place in a can and toss. With your ideas there is a better way. Thank John
I’ve done this too, and one thing to make sure of is that your wire racks are oven safe. I had some cooling racks that I didn’t realize were not oven safe (I mean, metal is metal, right?? :/ ) and pretty much destroyed them after the second use of cooking bacon on them in the oven. I also lost a pound of bacon because I was too scared to eat the meat after the racks fell apart. There were metal bits every where.
I’m glad you mentioned this. I’m cooking some bacon right now on some cheapo wire racks from the Dollar Tree and I think they’re held together with solder. I sure as heck don’t want those solder joints melting and getting into the bacon.
I also do this and recommend not preheating the oven. It really makes a difference
I love making bacon in the oven!
My favourite thing to make with the leftover grease is sautéed Brussels sprouts. We trim and 1/2 them (1/4 for really big guys) and use a mandolin to cut an onion really thin and then we drizzle with bacon grease, and add seasoned salt and fresh ground pepper. Let it all marinate together for as long as possible (we try to make it up in the morning and let it sit in the fridge till supper) and then just fry it up in a hot skillet. Also works in the oven.
+1 for using leftover bacon grease for stove top popcorn. better than delicious.
I’ve been cooking my bacon in the oven for years, too. Best kept secret. However, I DO NOT preheat my oven. I place bacon in cold oven, temp to 400° for 20 min. Thicker bacon may take 22-24 min; thinner bacon 15-18 min.
I’ve been using this method for years. One slight disagreement though, do not pre heat the oven this will cut down on splatter of bacon grease, just put pan in cold oven.
I agree, no need to preheat the oven. And oddly the time is about the same without preheating the oven
I’ve been doing this for 6-7 years and consider it brilliant. I use the broiler pan that came with the stove. It’s not bad to clean if I do it right away, and easier than trying to scour wire racks which I also use for other purposes. The bacon is always flat as shown instead of curled up like it gets in the skillet. You can also do fun things like candied bacon–sprinkle raw bacon with a little light brown sugar or maple syrup, in which case I don’t save the fat. I have a convection oven, so bake at 350-375 degrees and put the pan in the upper third of the oven–no smoking or splatter.
Thanks for this comment. My oven is not self cleaning so I haven’t used this method, now bacon just went on the grocery list!
Great stuff!!! I look forward to doing this myself. Any tips for cooking scrapple in the oven?
I’ve tried oven bacon before and had a smoking problem with the drippings. What might be wrong? Should I turn it down to 350?
Your oven temp is too high. Turn it down. Let the fat slowly render out. It will crisp up in the end.
Hi Kimberly! Are you putting the bacon atop a wire rack like Beth has outlined in the recipe? That could be part of the issue.