Baking Bacon In The Oven

How To Collect Bacon Grease, The Nectar Of The Gods

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You may have seen people recommend baking bacon flat on a rack of cookie sheet. However, if you love to collect as much super-useful bacon grease (bacon fat) as possible, try hanging bacon from the oven rack.

You will need a cookie sheet big enough for however much bacon you will cook. A 12"x16" cookie sheet is shown here cooking 3 packages (30 oz) of bacon.

Hang the bacon from the top rack of the oven above the cookie sheet.

Try to leave enough space above the cookie sheet so that the grease will be able to drop off.

Push the racks back into the oven. Ideally the bacon should be fairly close to the middle of the oven at this point.

Cook the bacon. How long to bake bacon depends on the temperature, in this case 2 hours at 250 degrees F. A nice fairly low temperature like this gives time for the grease to render and collect. The oven temp should also be low enough so that there's no splattering in the oven. For the second hour the whole place will smell like bacon. Mmm.

Remove bacon (with tongs if you can't wait for the rack to cool).

Assemble pile of bacon strips for low-carb gluten-free salad?

Place a strainer on top of a jar, then pour off all of the bacon grease. (Not pictured, it helps to have a spatula to push the drippings down as you pour.)

The drippings on top are intensely concentrated bacon flavor, a nice addition to toss in a pan with other vegetables/meat later.

That's it for bacon.

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