How to Try Bacon without making a mess

Everyone in the world may already know how to fry bacon without covering their kitchen with a layer of grease.  I spent the first 20 years (give or take) of my cooking life splattering grease on my cabinets (and everything else) whenever I cooked bacon.  I just knew there had to be a better way.

I know people who microwave their bacon.  But, microwaves scare me.

I don’t even remember how I learned how to do this.  This is how I’ve been making bacon for at least 6 years.  The bacon is perfectly crispy, just as if you had fried it in a pan and splattered grease everywhere.

Here’s how to do it:

Grab a cookie sheet, bakers sheet, or other pan (with a rim) and cover it with foil.  You don’t have to use foil.  It just depends on how much time you want to spend cleaning pans.  I want to spend zero time cleaning pans, so I use foil.  A little trick that can prevent the bacon from sticking to the foil is to not lay the foil perfectly flat.  Add a few wrinkles & humps to the foil before you slap the bacon on it.

After you foil the pans, lay the bacon side by side.  The bacon strips will touch, but you don’t want them to overlap.

Now, put the bacon into a COLD oven and turn it on to 425 degrees.

In 20 minutes you will have perfectly cooked (fried) bacon. And your kitchen will be intact.  And you won’t have to de-grease every flat surface.  And your floors won’t resemble an ice skating rink.

Immediately, remove the bacon from the pan and transfer onto a paper towel lined plate to drain.

Now, what ever you do – don’t throw away that bacon grease.  

Go here for 10 reasons you should.  Especially if you spent 4 months of your life feeding, watering, loving, and swimming with those stupid, stinky, disgusting pigs last summer.  You are not going to want to waste an ounce of that hard-earned deliciousness.

Bacon grease is basically lard with lots of flavor!  

Believe it or not, Lard (rendered port fat) from pastured pigs is incredibly healthy.  As long as you’re pigs were processed without the use of MSG or nitrates that bacon is not a health hazzard.

Pastured pork is high in cancer preventing nutrients, Vitamin D and CLA or Conjugated Linoleic Acid. If you haven’t heard of CLA the wonder-fat, let me introduce you.  CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid ) increases muscle growth, decreases body fat, improves insulin sensitivity, inhibits and prevents various cancers, enhances immune system, and lowers cholesterol.  Although the top natural sources for CLA in the diet are meat and raw milk from grass-fed animals, it is also found in the fat of pasture raised pigs (Hooray for bacon grease!).  More on CLA here.

So, fry the bacon, save the grease & don’t feel bad about eating it.  If it came from pastured pigs & was made without MSG or nitrates, it’s going to be good food.  

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