Frying bacon in oil can leave rashers limp, greasy and unevenly cooked, but swapping the frying pan for the oven produces crispy, flavoursome results. At culinary school, bacon is cooked in the oven, not the pan.
Lori Yates, a cook and founder of Foxes Love Lemons, said: "Going to culinary school certainly introduced me to fancy kitchen techniques like making French pastries and hollandaise sauce. But it also introduced me to something so simple, so basic, so obvious, that I was left scratching my head as to why I hadn't thought of it before: how to cook bacon in the oven."
Why oil leaves bacon burnt and rubbery
Bacon naturally cooks in its own fat. Adding oil makes the fatty white parts cook much faster without rendering properly, so the white edges burn before the pink meat has fully cooked, leaving rashers charred and rubbery.
Both fat and oil cause grease to splatter and burn the pan, creating more mess to clean up afterwards. Cooking bacon in the oven surrounds it with heat from all directions, allowing the fat to render gradually without any oil.
How to cook bacon in the oven
Preheat the oven to 190°C and line a rimmed baking tray with greaseproof paper or tin foil. Arrange the bacon in a single layer, making sure the rashers do not overlap, as this prevents even cooking.
Place the tray in the oven for about 20 minutes. For chewy bacon, remove it as soon as it turns golden brown. For extra crispy bacon, leave it for a further two to three minutes. There is no need to turn the bacon, but check it a few minutes before the time is up, as it can go from perfectly cooked to overdone quickly.
Once ready, transfer the bacon to kitchen paper to absorb excess grease. The result is crispy, golden bacon that is far more flavoursome than the pan-fried version.
