I'd heard about people cooking bacon in their ovens before, but had never tried it until now. I'm not sure why. It seemed like an easy enough process. I can say I'd had some prepared this way that was undercooked and unappealing, but the general findings really glorified this approach.
I started by scouring my favorite cooking and chef web sites for approaches, and more importantly, gotcha's! A few things jumped out right away. The first, which I always do when using baking sheets for other purposes, in covering said sheet with foil rather than wash the grease off later. With the shiny side of the foil facing up, it also creates more heat reflection, a good thing for this.
The next was putting a wire rack onto the sheet. The elevates the bacon, resulting in more even cooking and eliminates the potential need to turn the bacon half way through.
The final discovery was cooking temperature. With the set up I described above, the bacon would tend to cook more evenly, so I opted for 430F in a convection setting.
Now for the actual cooking time. Recommendations for this arrangement varied from 10 to 20 minutes, so I set a timer for 10 and began. Whene the buzzer went off, it was clear that the bacon would need longer, but alsos obvious was the way the fat was being rendered. This was looking yummy! I let it go another 5 minutes, then pulled it from the oven.
The results?
Overall, I loved this approach for it's simplicity and results. The bacon was perfectly cooked. The fatty areas were rendered down to perfection.
The only downside, somewhat predictably, was the inconsistency. I had used a sheet pan that did not leave much circulation room. As such, the experiment exposed the heat flow in my oven, which you can see in the picture. The bacon on one side is "more done" than the other. This is perfect for me, as my partner loves their bacon cooked more than I do. Otherwise, I would either use a smaller pan or rotate it half way through.
All in all, it was a fun experiment with good results. I'm looking forward to making my glazed bacon strip this way as well.
To recap, I cooked thick slice bacon with:
a 450F oven (430F if convection)
Baking sheet lined with shiny-side up foil
Wire rack to elevate the bacon
If I were cooking thinner sliced bacon, I'd favor a shorter time over lower temperature, which should render the fat better. Good luck!
