Making Bacon

Picture of plate with bacon and scrambled eggs

There are so many ways to prepare bacon but I thought I would share with you the way we do it in our house — perfect every time! The cooking times depend on the cut of bacon you use. In the pictures and directions here, we used thick-cut bacon. Center-cut would be the next thickness down, then "regular" bacon.  

Ingredients

Use however many slices of whatever kind of bacon you want to use! Here are some details about how we choose our brand.

If you buy Wellshire brand "Paleo" bacon, you will see there is absolutely no sugar in it. However, as long as you do not get bacon that touts "Maple" in its title, you are probably pretty safe with whatever you are choosing. When you get a cured bacon, sugar is part of that process and will burn off in the cooking. However, if you have 2–3 brands available to you, you just might want to check the carb count (the carbs are before the cooking process, but if you start with a lower carb count, you will probably end up with fewer carbs). Also, there is a fear of nitrates and nitrites, which is generally unwarranted. A lot of the higher-quality cured meats use naturally occurring nitrates/nitrites such as celery juice and nitrate salt itself is not a manufactured chemical. Because I am not a medical site I cannot advise you one way or the other and suggest you do your own research and come to your own conclusions, but I bet it is safe to say that unless you are consuming only cured meats and have nothing else in your diet, you don't have to look for the holy grail of an uncured no-nitrate and no-sugar bacon. 

GrannyKeto.com Recipes: Making bacon in the oven

Directions for thick-cut bacon

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

  2. Lay out slices of bacon on top of a cookie-cooling rack. (See — your baking apparatus can be used on Keto!) Leave a little space between the slices, otherwise they steam rather than crisp.

  3. For the thick-cut bacon pictured, we baked 15 minutes on one side, turned, then 15 minutes on the other.

  4. We tend to have a slow oven so check after 10 minutes. The bacon is ready to turn over once it has softened and you can see the edges crisping a little bit and fat beginning to turn translucent.

  5. Ditto for the second side. Check after 10 minutes to see if it is done enough to your taste. You might even want to go longer than the 15 minutes.

GrannyKeto.com Recipes: Bacon cooked to perfection in the oven

Other ways to make it in the oven:  (1) Higher oven temp and less cooking time (although this requires eagle-eye watching as it doesn't take much to burn the bacon at a higher temp. (2) Lower oven temp for a longer time (up to 30 minutes on each side). (3) Directly cooked on aluminum foil — although the heating tends to be uneven and you won't get it as uniform as pictured. (4) Bake on parchment paper (but this tends to be more steamed than crisped). (5) Start in the oven and finish in the frying pan. 

If you have a favorite brand and use it every time (we tend to buy what is on sale!), you will find what works with a little experimenting and you can do it the same way each and every time with consistent results. 

If you bake the bacon (instead of fry it), you can make a basket weave with the bacon and proceed with the instructions. You can use the basket weave flat to use as a flat base for toppings or while it is hot and pliable, you can line a pie plate or muffin tins and then make your own creative recipe from there!