The Unnecessary Step You Should Always Skip When Cooking Bacon In The Oven

To many, making bacon in the oven isn't a technique that comes naturally. If you grew up always frying up bacon on the stove, you may be unaware of which steps in the oven-baking process are vital and which ones can be skipped entirely. While many will default to preheating their ovens before placing the meat inside them, the sometimes vital step is completely unnecessary when it comes to making great bacon. This follows the same logic as starting your bacon in a cold pan, which has many benefits that people often forget.

We discussed why preheating isn't required when baking bacon with Robert Cornett, the executive chef at Rancho de Los Caballeros, who noted a few reasons why you should be saving time by throwing your bacon in a cold oven. "Bacon is thin and warms quickly. There's no advantage to tempering it beforehand," Cornett explained. "Starting bacon in a cold oven allows the fat to render gradually as the temperature rises. This produces even browning, better texture, and less splatter." These benefits aren't necessarily exclusive to bacon (there are several foods that don't require preheating), but cold-baking your delicious breakfast meat could result in you enjoying the best home-cooked bacon you've ever had.

While cooking your bacon in the oven without preheating it makes things easier and more tasty, it also results in a much more reliable final product. "A hot oven can tighten the lean meat before the fat renders properly. Starting cold delivers more consistent results," Robert Cornett explained. This is incredibly important because consistency is one of the key reasons why many prefer oven-baked bacon to alternative cooking methods. While some cite the hands-off nature of making bacon in the oven as its biggest benefit, the appliance provides a more even bake for each piece and allows for a larger margin of error when it comes to cook time and temperature. 

Using the oven does mean having less precise control over how crispy each piece of bacon is — a highlight of cooking bacon on the stove — but the more uniform nature of oven-baked bacon makes it much more suitable as an ingredient in dip, sandwiches, or casseroles. Plus, celebrities like Martha Stewart love cooking bacon in the oven because it prevents soggy bacon and is much less messy than on the stove.

As for how to make bacon in the oven without preheating it, many have differing opinions on the best cook time and temperature, but Robert Cornett gave us his general recommendation to make the ideal version of the meat. "Lay bacon on a lined sheet pan, place it in a cold oven, set to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and cook for 18 to 25 minutes, depending on thickness," Cornett advised.