Cooking bacon w/o making a mess (oven and microwave)
 

Hey BUDDDs. I'm wanting to make my next DD (Wednesday) a bacon day. I feel like some fat-fast type DDs are in order to get my losses moving again. Anyway, I was able to find a post by LibraryGirl on how she microwaves bacon w/o a greasy mess (thanks again Cindy!).

I'm also looking for how you all might cook bacon in the oven w/o coating the inside and bottom of your oven with grease, which is what I had when last I tried it. I remember seeing someone post a method months ago, but can't seem to locate that post.

Your help will be much appreciated!

I've done bacon in the oven 2 ways. Directly on a cookie sheet, or on a rack over a dish. Either way there is a lot of grease in the receptacle but I've never had it splatter. Cooked at 350 until desired degree of doneness (i like very crispy, DH likes a bit wiggly). Been our standard way of going for years.

I use a cookie sheet covered with foil, turn the oven to 400 , but don't pre heat, just put the cookie sheet on the middle rack when oven still cold and cook for 12 to 18 minutes to desired doneness. Remove from oven and use tongs to transfer bacon to paper towel lined plate, when the cookie sheet cools, carry to trash can and carefully throw away foil. Cookie sheet should hold about 12 pieces if I remember correctly. I use the center cut( shorter ) bacon.

I typically do mine on the stove top on a little bacon griddle, but the microwave is not messy when you wrap it in papertowel. Someone posted that they put it on the George Foremen Grill, but that may be messy as well.

^^Exactly how I cook mine, but I strain and save the bacon grease.

Thanks guys! I knew I could count on the JBs for this info.

So, you don't get a greasy film in your oven doing it this way? Just paranoid here. Mine was such a mess last time I did it in the oven, although I didn't do it exactly like you described.

I do mine in the oven too at 400 for about 16 min--I like mine crispy. Never noticed a mess? I have issues with a mess trying to micro it :stars:

My DH hates bacon - I know, weird huh? He can't stand the smell. And he absolutely hates it when the oven reeks of eau de bacon. So what works for me is to put a silpat liner in a cookie sheet, lay out the bacon, and put another silpat liner on top. The oven doesn't get bacon residue all over it, and I can save most of the grease by immediately pouring it off, and silpats are easy to clean up. They don't get super-super crispy this way, but still pretty crispy. Since he hates the smell so much, I do make the whole package at one time, so leftovers are seldom crispy anyway.

I don't mind the smell of bacon, but ham hock/neck bones/fat back... :sick:
I really hate the smell when DW cooks it in collard greens, but I don't mind the taste, but the smell....

I cook bacon on the George Foreman grill between 2 sheets of parchment paper. (I even re-use the paper by putting it in a gallon ziploc bag and freezing it.) No mess at all, except for washing out the "fat trap"! It takes a while for it to get as crispy as I like it, but there's no smoke, and the pieces stay crispy for days; I wrap the leftovers in tin foil and save them in the fridge.

To speed things up, I sometimes partially cook the pieces in a pan and then transfer to the GF grill to finish crisping, while I start the next batch; I usually cook the whole package at once.

Another nice thing about the grill is that when I don't want my house, clothes, & hair to smell like bacon, I can take it outside and cook on the deck.

If I do cook the bacon in a pan, I've found that the top of my bamboo steamer makes a really great spatter shield--steam escapes, so the bacon gets crispy, but I get a lot more protection than I do from the silly mesh spatter shield I have!

Or you can cook it at a low/medium temperature on the stove. Cut the bacon in half if too big for the pan.

I put bacon on a wire cooling rack inside a big pan (9 x13") with aluminum foil inside and bake it for about an hour at 250 degrees, checking every 15 minutes or so after the first 45 minutes. When the bacon gets to the crispiness that I like, I take it out of the oven, remove strips of bacon and put on paper towels, and pour off the bacon grease and save it for cooking (in a jar in the fridge). Because the heat isn't high, this doesn't splatter all over your oven, but it does make your house smell like bacon. This is the "Baked Bacon" method from Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint cookbook.

Mmmm, bacon day, that sounds :yummy: Are you going to stick to your DD calories? Sounds heavenly. . . .

I can't help you with clean cooking - I deep fry my bacon in lard in a sauce pan, lol! :hyst: I do use a splatter screen though, it doesn't really make too much of a mess and cooks quickly.

I cook mine this way also and there is no mess. I cook a really thick cut - Wrights /Tyson and it is the best bacon ever. About $8.99/lb.

No mess. My house is going on the market in 2 weeks and we bought all new SS appliances. I'm extra paranoid about keeping my oven clean.

I microwave it, just toss a paper towel loosely on top and no greasy mess.
As I pull out a batch, I drain the grease into my "bacon cup" (lol) and once I'm finished with cooking it all, I cover the cup and put it in the fridge.

Great info everyone! Thanks so much. I'm going to try your methods and see which one works best for me.

Luv, I do stick to my DD calories on a bacon day. Surprisingly, you can have quite a lot of bacon (well blotted!) for 400-500 calories! I love it!

:yummy: That sounds better than a potato day!