I love stovetop bacon in theory. In practice, it’s a tiny grease-based weather event that coats your entire kitchen in “breakfast essence.” Oven bacon is the calm, grown‑up solution: hands‑off, even rendering, and you get to keep your shirt.
This method is tuned specifically for very thick, hand‑cut, home‑cured bacon in a basic American (non‑convection) oven, using wire racks on sheet pans. The key move: a cold‑oven start at 350°F so the fat has time to render before the lean goes from “meaty” to “sad and dry.”
Snapshot
- Implements: rimmed sheet pan; wire rack; foil (for sanity); tongs; paper towels; heatproof jar/bowl for bacon fat (optional but highly encouraged)
- Oven setting: Cold start, then 350°F / 175°C (optional hot finish at 400°F / 205°C)
- Batch size: 1 lb thick-cut bacon per sheet pan (don’t crowd; use two pans if you need to)
Ingredients
The basics
- 1 lb very thick sliced bacon (home-cured is perfect here)
Optional (but useful) guardrails
- ~¼ cup water, poured into the sheet pan under the rack (helps reduce smoking if your drippings run hot)
- Fresh black pepper, to taste (only if your cure isn’t already peppery)
To serve (choose your lane)
- Breakfast plate with eggs
- BLT or breakfast sandwich
- Crumbled over salad, baked potatoes, mac and cheese, or “I’m an adult” roasted Brussels sprouts
Method
- Rack + foil setup.
Line a rimmed sheet pan with foil. Set your wire rack on top. If you want extra smoke insurance, pour about ¼ cup water into the pan (under the rack).
- Lay out the bacon.
Arrange bacon slices on the rack in a single layer. A little touching is fine. Overlapping is not.
- Cold-start bake at 350°F.
Put the pan in a cold oven (middle rack is best), then set the oven to 350°F / 175°C.
Start checking at 20 minutes.
- Rotate (and keep going).
At ~20–25 minutes, rotate the pan for even browning. Keep baking until the fat is mostly rendered and the bacon is as crisp as you want.
For thick-cut bacon, total bake time is usually 30–45 minutes.
- Optional crisp finish.
If the bacon looks rendered but you want a bit more edge-crunch, bump the oven to 400°F / 205°C for 2–5 minutes. Watch closely here—home cures sometimes have sugar, and sugar is chaotic.
- Rest (don’t skip).
Lift the rack to let excess fat drip, then transfer bacon to paper towels (or just blot lightly). Let it rest 3–5 minutes. It crisps a little more as it cools.
- Save the bacon fat.
Carefully pour the drippings into a heatproof jar/bowl. Do not pour it down your sink unless you enjoy plumbing-based side quests.
Notes, swaps, and guardrails
Why the cold-oven start?
Thick bacon needs time for the fat to melt out. Starting cold and coming up to temp gently means:
- better rendering (less “chewy white fat”)
- less scorched edges
- more even crispness
How to tell it’s done
Look for:
- deep golden/mahogany color
- fat that’s mostly translucent (not opaque white)
- steady sizzling that looks like hot fat bubbling, not watery foam
Smoke control
If your oven gets smoky:
- use foil on the pan (burnt drippings are the smoke engine)
- add a small splash of water under the rack
- avoid the 400°F finish until the end (and only if needed)
If you’re cooking two pans
Use two racks in the oven and:
- rotate each pan front-to-back halfway through
- swap rack positions halfway through (top ↔ bottom)
- expect the total time to run a few minutes longer
Make-ahead bacon (a.k.a. future you says thanks)
Bake until just shy of your ideal crispness, cool, then refrigerate. Re-crisp on a rack in a 350°F oven for a few minutes until hot and snappy.