Bakin' Bacon Recipe

Gets even better w/ poached eggs, buttery biscuits and Mimosas

I'm a bacon fanatic. Certainly, I am not reinventing the wheel with this declaration, but facts is facts. Bacon is a big part of my life, and over the years I've tinkered with many a bacon recipe, from frying it in cast-iron (deliciously greasy, but time consuming and messy) to microwaving (quick and easy, but too dry and often inconsistently cooked) so when I stumbled across this very cool recipe for baked bacon, I just had to give it a try. What intrigued me most about this version of baking bacon in the oven was that the author recommends starting the process in a cold oven, which if you think about it, makes total sense in that it facilitates a slower, more even cooking process from start to finish.

So, New Year's Day became all about baking bacon.

According to the directions, I started by wrapping a large ridged sheet pan in heavy duty foil. Then, I laid out all the bacon side by side. I recommend using quality thick-cut bacon for this recipe. Next, I popped the whole shebang into the oven (center rack) and THEN cranked the heat up to 400 degrees. You must be sure to put the bacon into a cold oven. P.S. If you're really feeling creative, at this point you can also drizzle bacon with molasses or sprinkle it with brown sugar and cayenne pepper before roasting it in the oven for additional flavor. (Thanks Karol Thompkins!)

Next, I roasted the bacon for approximately 20-24 minutes. Obviously, oven temps vary depending on the make, model, age and accuracy of your particular oven, but I ended up somewhere in that time range. Also, about three-quarters through the cooking process, I flipped the bacon over to promote more even cooking. One thing I did notice of culinary note is if your oven is a bit cockeyed (or perhaps the floors of your kitchen slope as mine do) the bacon resting in the rendered fat will cook faster than the rest of the meat. With this in mind, I recommend turning your pan at least once during the cooking process. This should be your end result:

After your bacon is done the way you like it, remove it to drain on paper towels (be sure to save your grease for making cornbread). Once the pan has cooled, simply ball up the foil and toss it away for easy clean-up.

Serve up your bacon with your favorite accoutrements. Store any leftover cooked bacon in ziplock bags in the fridge for BLT's, biscuit sandwiches or nibbling.

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