How do you cook your bacon?

A funny Bacon story. Back in the day I took a divorcee and her 13 yrs old daughter of Satan to Lapland for Christmas. She complained about the food and would only eat lots of bacon and eggs at breakfast. The only activity she seemed to enjoy was sleigh rides and spent most of her time in the reindeer stables grooming them.
Payback for me was breakfast on the last morning, I truthfully informed her that the "bacon" she was stuffing into her mouth was Reindeer. Ho Ho Ho
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I have been using a bacon press - as I described here - to make bacon since I bought it:

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This is definitely the lazy man's way of keeping the bacon from curling up. I always cook it long enough to render the fat and make it crispy.

I think starting with a cold pan keeps it from curling up because the raw bacon sticks to the pan. But, as long as I have my piggy, I will keep using it.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
I have been using a bacon press - as I described here - to make bacon since I bought it:

View attachment 45219

This is definitely the lazy man's way of keeping the bacon from curling up. I always cook it long enough to render the fat and make it crispy.

I think starting with a cold pan keeps it from curling up because the raw bacon sticks to the pan. But, as long as I have my piggy, I will keep using it.
Click to expand...

I have a Lodge cast iron press. It is rectangular, but does the same thing. Waffle House uses a press, too. It speeds the cooking.

Now, as for a cool pan, bacon has more than enough fat to keep from sticking, even in a dry cast iron pan. What keeps it from curling up (in my un-scientific opinion) is that it comes up to temperature slowly, so it shrinks slowly. All I know is that it works, and I've been told by someone who knows his way around a kitchen, that I am a genius. :chef:

CD :D
 
not that I have some kind of objection(s), but I've never done bacon in the oven....
and I've only ever had good bacon at 'free h/motel breakfast' at exactly one place in VA. the rest is typically _terrible_.

depending on what else is cooking,,,,,
if I'm doing pancakes on the griddle, the bacon gets cooked first, followed by pancakes.
if I'm doing something non-griddled, it gets cooked in a cast iron fry pan, followed by eggs/omelet/waffles/etc.
I have a round bacon press, which gets used on the griddle or the fry pan.

lately we've been doing egg burritos for breakfast/early brunch. for these I microwave the bacon.
two layers of paper towels to soak up the grease, bacon - 2 pcs side by side - covered by one layer of paper towel to block the grease spatter. starting guesstimate time: one minute at full power per strip.... our preferences and microwave finally settled on 2 minutes 30 seconds at full power for two strips - of a dry cured bacon. ymmv.
 
Morning Glory said:
This is very controversial. I hope you realise... tomorrow I will try your method and post the results.
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I'm torn on this one. I don't like microwaved bacon. About the only time I'll microwave it is when I'm in a hurry, and when it's going on something else, so it's not standing out.

Why am I torn? Because my cooking mentor Jacques Pepin is an advocate of microwaving bacon. What?!?! :eek:

Whenever I eat microwaved bacon, I just close my eyes and think of Jacques until it's over. :laugh:
 
CookieMonster said:
not that I have some kind of objection(s), but I've never done bacon in the oven....
and I've only ever had good bacon at 'free h/motel breakfast' at exactly one place in VA. the rest is typically _terrible_.
Click to expand...

I assume you are speaking of pork bacon.

I've lived in hotels in Malaysia and Indonesia and the breakfasts leave a lot to be desired. Bacon is beef, ham is turkey and sausage is chicken; all of which I now won't touch!
 
CookieMonster said:
not that I have some kind of objection(s), but I've never done bacon in the oven....
and I've only ever had good bacon at 'free h/motel breakfast' at exactly one place in VA. the rest is typically _terrible_.

depending on what else is cooking,,,,,
if I'm doing pancakes on the griddle, the bacon gets cooked first, followed by pancakes.
if I'm doing something non-griddled, it gets cooked in a cast iron fry pan, followed by eggs/omelet/waffles/etc.
I have a round bacon press, which gets used on the griddle or the fry pan.

lately we've been doing egg burritos for breakfast/early brunch. for these I microwave the bacon.
two layers of paper towels to soak up the grease, bacon - 2 pcs side by side - covered by one layer of paper towel to block the grease spatter. starting guesstimate time: one minute at full power per strip.... our preferences and microwave finally settled on 2 minutes 30 seconds at full power for two strips - of a dry cured bacon. ymmv.
Click to expand...
Microwaving bacon gives my microwave a smell that I can't stand, and since I sometimes warm other types of food or drinks (rewarming coffee or warming something sweet), I don't want the bacon to infuse flavor into something else.

I use an electric skillet with a lid on it that cooks a pound of bacon at a time. It's super easy to clean afterwards, no splatter and the pan wipes clean. We will eat maybe .25% of it and store the rest in a container or ziplock with a paper towel for later use. Just reheat the number of pieces you need.
 
Morning Glory said:
This is very controversial. I hope you realise... tomorrow I will try your method and post the results.
Click to expand...
I've been told about microwaving bacon since the mid-1980's and never bought into it.
until.... the lockdowns.
tortillla, strip of bacon top to bottom, 90 g scrambled egg, heavy sprinkle of 4 cheese Mexican blend, fold&wrap....
I decided the microwave the bacon vs 10-15 minutes with a cast iron pan....
it works, and the rest as they say is history.

btw, I _suspect_ it works best for some limited number of strips. I wouldn't try 10-12 slices at a pop.
 
CookieMonster said:
I've been told about microwaving bacon since the mid-1980's and never bought into it.
until.... the lockdowns.
tortillla, strip of bacon top to bottom, 90 g scrambled egg, heavy sprinkle of 4 cheese Mexican blend, fold&wrap....
I decided the microwave the bacon vs 10-15 minutes with a cast iron pan....
it works, and the rest as they say is history.

btw, I _suspect_ it works best for some limited number of strips. I wouldn't try 10-12 slices at a pop.
Click to expand...

I had a disaster microwaving bacon today. It shrunk! This is the same bacon which I cook perfectly well in the halogen oven and which is a quite expensive 'dry cure' bacon. It shrinks a bit but not as much as in the microwave. Two minutes 20 seconds cremated it - so that will be turned to 'bacon dust' (which is a gourmet treat in itself). 1 minute 30 seconds cooked it OK but rather shrunken and not very crispy. I'll post photos later...
 
Morning Glory said:
I had a disaster microwaving bacon today. It shrunk! This is the same bacon which I cook perfectly well in the halogen oven and which is a quite expensive 'dry cure' bacon. It shrinks a bit but not as much as in the microwave. Two minutes 20 seconds cremated it - so that will be turned to 'bacon dust' (which is a gourmet treat in itself). 1 minute 30 seconds cooked it OK but rather shrunken and not very crispy. I'll post photos later...
Click to expand...

That's the only was my parents cook bacon. The paper towels soak up all the grease. I'll eat it at their house, but won't cook it that way at home. It's like bacon flavored, crunchy cardboard.

CD
 
Morning Glory said:
I had a disaster microwaving bacon today. It shrunk! This is the same bacon which I cook perfectly well in the halogen oven and which is a quite expensive 'dry cure' bacon. It shrinks a bit but not as much as in the microwave. Two minutes 20 seconds cremated it - so that will be turned to 'bacon dust' (which is a gourmet treat in itself). 1 minute 30 seconds cooked it OK but rather shrunken and not very crispy. I'll post photos later...
Click to expand...
I'm going to guess it's not an exact science since microwaves are of varying sizes and perhaps power levels. Two minutes in one microwave might not be long enough while it's too long in another.

I cooked bacon in my microwave once in the past 20 years and it wasn't a good fit for me, as my microwave smelled like bacon afterwards. I had to clean it with white vinegar to get the smell out. And I don't like wasting paper using the paper towels. At the time I tried it, I had 4 kids at home and my husband, and I needed to find a way to cook large quantities of bacon all at once.

I tried cooking it in the oven a few times and it worked well, but it splattered in my oven and I was worried about starting a fire. For me the electric skillet, which cooks 12+ strips at a time, works the best. And I still do it that way because it's a convenient time-saver to cook more at once and use the rest later.

My eldest stepdaughter likes her bacon a tad chewy and she has a special microwave bacon cooker platter with ridges in it she uses. But it's just her and her husband, so she only has to cook 5-6 pieces at a time.
 
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