Baked Bacon: Perfectly Crisp and Chewy

Like many things in life, my wife and I have different opinions on how bacon should be cooked. We clearly don't have the same taste in music, movies, or TV shows. I thought food was the one area where we could see eye-to-eye. But she likes her bacon crispy. I like mine chewy -- almost like pork belly jerky.  There's nothing I hate more than when you're at a hotel or a banquet hall and they have a big tray of bacon that is razor-thin and completely dry. It's such a bait-and-switch and it drives me nuts. I'm not even sure what the point is in slicing the bacon that thin. Instead of taking two or three pieces, you have to take twice as many because you can practically see right through them.  And that dried-out, brittle texture is enough to make me regret taking any in the first place.

Now that's more like it!

Recently we were at my wife's grandparents's house having breakfast when my she emasculated me in front of everyone by nudging me in the ribs and saying, "That's how you cook bacon."  Her grandpa starts with the bacon in a cold pan and brings it up to temperature, while holding a spatula down on it the whole time to be sure it doesn't curl up on him.

We decided to take a different approach and bake the bacon this time. I read that it will get crispy on the outside, but not be so dried out inside. So it retains that chewy toothy-ness that I like so much. It employs the same concept as Grandpa Gary, though, because you put the bacon into a cold oven and then bring it up to temperature.

Spray a wire cooling rack with non-stick cooking spray and place it on top a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil. That will make your cleanup job way easier.

Put it into a cold oven and set the temperature for 400 degrees. Once the oven has pre-heated, let the bacon cook for an additional 10-12 minutes. Mine was thick-cut, so I needed to let it go a little longer. But 10-12 minutes should do just about right for normal bacon.

I patted it dry with a paper towel, and then cut up 3 slices into smaller crumbles for the top of our instant cheese soup. (I had to eat one slice by itself. I'm a bacon junkie after all.)

It was crisp and crunchy enough to be cut rather easily with a sharp knife. But thankfully for my tastes, it was still chewy when I bit into it. This is a much more hands-off method for cooking bacon, and you can find a nice sweet spot between crunchy & chewy that should please most guests.