The Biggest Mistakes Everyone Makes When Cooking Bacon

From the method you're using to cook it, to the type of pan you use and how hot it is, there are all kinds of ways you could do your favorite breakfast meat a disservice. Here's everything you're doing wrong with

bacon

and how to do it right. "Hi, thanks for joining me for a morning quickie." Mornings can be hectic. But don't try to shave a few minutes off your breakfast routine by heating a frying pan over very high heat and then tossing freshly-taken-from-the-fridge

bacon

into it. Will you get cooked bacon with this method? Sure. Will you want to eat said bacon?

Probably not. "You would assume the secret ingredient is love. Actually, it's bacon." The problem with the cold bacon and hot pan method is that all that glorious fat on those strips needs time to heat up and melt. If you throw cold meat into a hot pan, the fat immediately begins to clog, resulting in bacon that. has a chewy texture for perfectly crispy strips with tender fat, start preparing the bacon in a cold skillet over medium-low heat and take your time to ensure the fat renders properly and gives the bacon its own fat. to cook and become crispy. "There's no better start to the day than eggs for breakfast.

Except maybe eggs with a side of..." “...bacon.” "AH! Hi Jaja". So you're slaving away at the stove,

cooking

your cold bacon in a cold pan, just like you're supposed to. But your strips are not perfect and are even burned in some places. What gives? When it comes to

cooking

bacon, not all pans are created equal. The cast iron skillet is king

when

it comes to bacon, and that's because of its heavy bottom that conducts heat evenly. Gone will be those burnt edges you get

when

using aluminum, which heats up too quickly and is also prone to random hot spots.

As an added bonus, every time you cook bacon in your cast iron skillet, all that delicious fat seasons the pan—proof that bacon really does make everything better. "It would be perfect to be drinking a beer and taking your time. I don't know if you want to do it at 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday, but that's your decision." This may seem like an odd way to ensure your bacon is "crisp and tender, rather than dry and crumbly," but when America's Test Kitchen talks, we listen, and according to their experts, the secret to better bacon is water.

To make this next-level bacon, they recommend covering the meat with water and putting the pan over high heat. Although we keep hearing that high heat is bad for bacon, water here keeps the cooking temperature low and allows "the meat to retain its moisture and stay tender." Once it boils, reduce the heat to medium and continue simmering until all the water has evaporated. Then reduce the heat to medium-low and finish cooking the bacon until browned. The result? "What's left is plump bacon, pleasantly crispy and not hard or brittle." If you're making bacon for a crowd, no one wants to be left manning the stove while

everyone

else enjoys their mimosas.

The solution? Bake a big batch in the oven and join your brunch guests. "Fantastic." Baked bacon seems pretty simple, but there are many methods, and they all claim to be the best. Thanks to J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats, who tested several of those methods, we now know which one is best. in the best way. No racks, aluminum foil, parchment paper or other tools needed. Just a rimmed baking sheet and a 425 degree oven. Line up the strips, bake for about 20 minutes until crisp, and drain on paper towels. But if you just can't give up the rack method, consider following Alton Brown's advice to avoid those dreaded smoke detector wails: "When grilling bacon at 400°F, try lining the pan with paper towels.

They absorb grease and "They prevent smoking." What really is the key to life-changing bacon? According to a GQ writer, it's a bacon press. "The world is divided into two halves: those who eat bacon and those who eat bacon." The simple cast iron press, when combined with a cast iron skillet, apparently has a huge effect on breakfast meat, and that's because it allows each and every sauce and curl from the bacon strip. come into contact with heat. As GQ's Josh Scherer explained, when you place a strip of bacon in a pan, the wavy parts that don't touch the cooking surface cook only with the rising steam.

Soft, steamed bacon means you miss out on all the melt-in-your-mouth fat and perfectly browned pieces of meat. With the bacon press, you will cook the most tempting bacon you have ever seen. Depending on who you ask, microwaving bacon can be a polarizing topic. As Bon Appétit implores: "Just don't. Please don't do it." …Others think it produces a perfectly edible finished product. Here's how to cook bacon in the microwave so you won't regret it. Skip the paper towels and place the bacon strips around the edge of a bowl, place the bowl on top of a larger plate, then microwave until crisp.

The fat will drip into the bowl or plate and the bacon will become crispy. You'll feel a little like Goldilocks here, but to make the best bacon, you need to cook just the right amount or risk a breakfast failure. While it may be tempting to do the job quickly and throw a bunch of bacon into the pan at once, it turns out that doing so is actually a recipe for disaster. According to Bon Appétit, you need to leave about an inch of space around each strip, to allow the fat to render out and give the bacon a chance to crisp up, rather than smoking in its tight spaces and becoming mushy and soggy. "You're doing it all wrong." On the other hand, cooking too few strips of bacon can also end badly.

Scott Vermeire of Prather Ranch Meat Company told Chowhound that cooking just one or two pieces of bacon doesn't allow enough fat to be rendered quickly enough and therefore the pan doesn't stay lubricated. Unless you like completely charred bacon, no one has time for that. Although the royals have some strict rules about food, they are apparently free to eat all the bacon they want. And according to a former royal chef, if that bacon is destined for Prince Harry's plate, it must be specially cooked to his taste. Chef Darren McGrady told Food & Wine that an 8-year-old Prince Harry taught him a thing or two about cooking breakfast meat after a trip to Florida.

He recalled: "It was after I came back from Walt Disney World and I had cooked bacon for breakfast. We served the same bacon that you can get in the United States and I grilled it anyway. But Prince Harry told me, 'We ate it in the United States.' United, at Disney World, and it's so crispy you can break it up. First you have to grill it, then put it on paper towels and put it in the microwave for a minute, and I thought, yeah, okay, thanks, brat, for teaching me how to cook, but as soon as it was gone, I tried it and got this incredibly crispy bacon.” For his part, McGrady says he never went back to the old ways and from then on he used the roasting plus microwave method.

Get one for Prince Harry. "I'm going to save our natural resources and respect our animal friends by becoming a vegetarian from now on...ooh, bacon." Don't get us wrong, we won't say no to plain bacon, but every once in a while it's fun to change things up and it turns out that flavoring your own bacon may be easier than you thought. , you'll want to cook it in the oven, as this allows you to easily add the flavor mixture and eliminates the need for constant flipping. The Kitchn recommends using a foil-lined baking sheet and cooking the bacon to 400 degrees.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes before draining the fat from the pan. At that point, you can experiment with any concoction you like. Cook for 5 more minutes and, voila, try a classic combination like maple syrup. and chipotle chili powder, or go for a mixture of Sriracha, sesame oil and honey. Or how about some roasted garlic bacon? The possibilities are truly endless. Get it?" Aside from the deliciously salty meat itself, the second best thing that comes from cooking a big pan of bacon is the fat. Bacon grease is the secret ingredient you didn't know you needed: you can fry eggs.

Use it in salad dressings and add it to soups, stews, cookies, and candy. Honestly, you can use it in just about anything you cook. While your grandma may have a can of fat in her pantry, you might as well use it in dressings. for salads and add it to soups, stews, cookies and candies. They understandably want to comply with stricter food safety measures and that's as simple as pouring the fat through a strainer and sealing it in a container to store in the refrigerator. The magic of bacon fat is that even when it's cold, it's still nice and pliable, ready for any need, even if it's just spread on toast. "That's a great piece of bacon." Perhaps the only negative thing about bacon is the lingering smell it leaves behind.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to banish the ghost of bacon's past. To start, use a backsplash, which helps reduce particles that get into the air and stick to countertops and walls. Second, turn on your stove's exhaust fan or open the windows. Next, wipe down any surfaces that may have been hit by splashes, wash dirty dishes, and throw away or wash any towels used in the cleaning process. Lastly, if you're basically one step away from witness protection with bacon, spray some air freshener in the room and you'll be solid gold. Let's face it: the process of cooking bacon can result in a pretty big disaster.

Whether you're using the stove, oven, or microwave, there are splatters, piles of paper towels, and puddles of grease to clean up. But there is a way to hack it. Commit to cooking the entire package (or two, actually) at once. Once the bacon has cooled, all those perfectly cooked strips are ready for the freezer. The goal here is to ensure that the bacon strips are frozen individually, so you can take as many as you need. Simply place parchment paper on a baking sheet and line up the cooked strips so they are not touching. Depending on how much you have, you may need to add another layer of paper on top and start a new row of bacon.

Put it in the freezer for 3 hours or overnight. Once frozen, store slices in a resealable bag for up to a month. Whenever you need it, simply microwave the frozen bacon for about 30 seconds. Although it may seem a little silly, bacon weaving is more than just a trick for bacon lovers: Believe it or not, this piece of latticed meat is the answer to many of your culinary problems, including dry meatloaf. With a bacon-like texture, poorly coated burgers are a thing of the past. Add one to a BLT or burger and you'll guarantee a substantial amount of salty meat with every bite.

And then there's bacon-wrapped chicken, meatloaf, burgers or pork tenderloin. Not only does it add stunning style, but it also adds tons of flavor and prevents food from drying out. And it's not as complicated as it sounds: simply weave full strips or half strips of bacon like a lattice into a large enough square, then bake them until crispy or wrap them around the dish you're cooking. "Never add bacon. Without bacon it ruins everything forever." Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, more Mashed videos about your favorite things will be coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and press the bell so you don't miss a single one.