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After testing the stove, oven and fryer, I discovered that one technique produces much crispier results – with half the mess.
David Watsky Editor-in-Chief / Home and Kitchen
David lives in Brooklyn where he has spent over a decade dealing in all things edible, including meal kit services, food subscriptions, kitchen tools, and cooking advice. David received his BA from Northeastern and has worked in almost every aspect of the food industry, including as a line cook in Rhode Island, where he once made a steak sandwich for Lamar Odom. Right now, he’s probably somewhere testing a blender or tinkering with a toaster. Anything with sesame is her all-time favorite dish this week.
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When you’re shelling out $10 for a package of premium bacon, settling for a lukewarm cooking method is out of the question. Although bacon’s high fat content makes it nearly impossible to dry out, the real challenge isn’t flavor. It’s the grease splatters that create a huge mess in the kitchen that you need to clean up.
In an effort to find the best and cleanest way to prepare bacon for a Sunday brunch or BLT, I tried several methods, including stovetop, oven, and air fryer.
Turns out I did everything wrong.
A frying pan
- Cooking time: 10 minutes
- Hassle: 8/10
- How much bacon: 7-8 bands
I grew up on pan-seared bacon, but my test revealed there is a better way.
Mike Mackinven/Getty ImagesThis is how I grew up cooking bacon and it’s perfectly fine. There’s not a lot of skill required to fry bacon in a pan, although almost every batch I’ve made sends up a healthy splatter on the stovetop. In more unfortunate cases, this hellish grease lands directly on my skin or clothes, posing two separate but equally aggravating problems.
Seared bacon absorbs a ton of grease, which is why many turn to paper towels to drain it after cooking. Pan-frying these pork belly strips also tends to curl them into little bacon balls. While this has no impact on taste, it may result in suboptimal presentation.
I can smell bomb splatter just looking at this photo.
David Watsky/CNETAnother downside to cooking bacon in a pan is its limited capacity. A 10-inch frying pan can only hold about 7 medium-sized slices of bacon at a time, although you can add more as they shrink during cooking.
Then there remains the question of cleaning said pan after use. It’s not recommended to put most kitchen utensils in the dishwasher, so you’ll have to deal with that grease-soaked surface yourself.
The oven
- Cooking time: 18 minutes
- Hassle: 6/10
- How much bacon: 10-12 strips
Baked bacon is ideal for cooking large quantities.
CNETAlthough it requires more preparation, oven-cooked bacon has clear advantages over pan-frying. On the one hand, capacity isn’t an issue, as a standard cookie sheet or baking sheet can hold almost a full package of bacon, making the oven ideal for baking large quantities.
Using a baking sheet and rack allows the fat to drip off. This produces crispier, less greasy results, but it presents a headache when it comes time to clean up. Cookie sheets and baking sheets don’t hold up well in the sink, and there’s usually enough grease that you don’t want to run them through your dishwasher.
You can line the baking sheet with foil, but it takes a lot of foil and most of the time the bacon grease will sneak under or through it anyway.
Oven-cooked bacon takes longer than bacon cooked in a frying pan – about 18 minutes – but if you plan to cook a whole pack and don’t want to deal with the stove while cooking, your oven is the better choice.
The air fryer
- Cooking time: 7 minutes
- Hassle: 4/10
- How much bacon: 6-7 bands
With its quick cooking time and hassle-free execution, the air fryer is my new go-to for making bacon.
David Watsky/CNETThere’s almost nothing I wouldn’t try making in the air fryer but, surprisingly, this is my first attempt at bacon. I expected quick cooking, as air fryers sizzle most foods about 25% faster than a standard oven.
The air fryer has proven to be my favorite way to make bacon, with one big caveat (more on that later). My favorite air fryer with glass bowl cooks these strips in about 7 minutes at 375°F – faster than oven and skillet. Since air fryers include a crispy rack, the fat naturally flows into the container below, so there was no need to nestle it into a lasagna with paper towels.
The crispy tray drained away excess grease while the bacon cooked.
David Watsky/CNETThe bacon turned out perfectly crispy and held its shape better than when fried in a pan.
And the mess was minimal. Because the air fryer’s cooking chamber fits easily into my sink, I was able to wash it in seconds with a sponge and soapy water. The chamber of my glass bowl air fryer is also dishwasher safe, so another option would have been to wipe off the grease and stick everything in the dishwasher.
Air fryer bacon is really crispy, y’all.
David Watsky/CNETThe big caveat: capacity
I use a modest 4 Quart Air Fryer so I can only insert about six strips at a time. It’s more than enough for my partner and I, but if I was making bacon for a group, I would have had to cook in batches or invest in a larger model.
That said…
Not having to monitor a sizzling, splattering pan or negotiate a grease-filled baking sheet removed from the oven makes it worth flipping another time to feed a crowd. No preheating is also necessary, unlike an oven, and the speed and cleanliness gave the air fryer the edge over other methods I’ve tried.
