How to Make Crispy Bacon
This is one of the tough questions of all time: how do you make your bacon crispy?
Despite not being suitable for either vegetarian or Kosher diets, bacon remains one of the most popular foods on the planet. Nearly every Western culture has its own version of it, from various cuts of pork, and with different ways of curing it, but they all tend to be from relatively fatty parts of the animal. Because of the high fat content, as well as the fact that it is cut rather thinly, bacon can, and usually does, end up rather soggy. Any attempt to cook it longer in order to make it crispy only ends up burning it, or making the grease start smoking. Neither result is very good, so my goal today is to explain how to make your bacon come out nice and crispy.
Whether you use the oven or the stove top, there is one major factor in crispy bacon, and that is to get as much of the fat out of the bacon as possible. Perfectly lean bacon would not become crispy, because you do need some fat; but too much fat just makes an oily mass, which is what causes bacon to become soggy. What is needed is a small amount of fat that will absorb enough heat to fry it rather than boil it. If you have too much fat then the heat simply spreads throughout the bacon and the temperature never gets high enough to fry. If you have only a small amount then the heat cannot dissipate, and you reach the required frying temperature.
So how do you remove the fat? To answer this, we need to understand what happens to fat when it heats up. There are 4 distinct “phases” that fat passes through when being heated up. The first is the solid phase, which is at room temperture and colder, as well as at slightly warmer. In this phase the fat can be pulled away from the meat fairly easily, as it is solid enough to maintain some structure.
The next stage is liquid, which occurs when the fat begins to get warm enough to melt. This temperature is significantly below the normal cooking temperature, but well above room temperature. When fat liquifies and leaves the meat, it is known as rendering.
Next is what I call the “coagulation” stage, which is a semi-solid phase where the fat begins to harden again. It is more “jelly-like” than the solid phase; there is little cohesiveness to the fat, but it does not flow, either. This happens at normal cooking temperature.
Last is the “fried” stage, where it becomes fully solid again, but with a greater hardness than either the solid or coagulated stages. This is where we get the crispiness in bacon from. This will only happen at the high end of cooking temperatures, but not for very long: soon after it will begin to burn, and that is a most unpleasant “fifth phase”.
So if making the fat hotter results in crispy texture, why can’t we just cook it long enough and hot enough to make it crispy? The answer lies in the fact that not all the fat will change phases at the same time. Fat on the bottom surface can, and often does, move through the liquid stage right to the coagulated stage before the fat in the middle of the bacon has had a chance to liquify and drain off. If the fat in the outer sections coagulates, there is nowhere for the fat in the inside to go once it becomes a liquid. This means that the heat on the surface will spread throughout the bacon, and none of the fat reaches the necessary temperature to make it crispy. Instead, you end up boiling the bacon in its own fat, thus making it soggy.
In order to get the most fat out the bacon as possible, you must keep the outside of the bacon as cool as possible for as long as possible, while allowing the inside to heat up enough to liquify the fat in order for it to drain out. Of course, the inside will never be hotter than the outside, because the heat is coming from the outside in the first place. But there are certain principles that we can follow that will help reduce the temperature difference:
1. Start with a cold pan or baking sheet. This is of paramount importance. If you are using a frying pan, make sure it is as cold as possible, put your bacon on it, and only then put it on the stove element. If using the oven, start with a cold baking sheet, put your bacon on it, and put it in the oven. Adding the bacon directly to a hot surface will almost instantly coagulate the fat on the bottom surface, which practically locks in the fat. That might be good for roasts, but not for bacon.
2. Use lower temperatures. The increases the time that the fat on the surface will take to coagulate, thus allowing more fat to drain off.
3. Drain the fat frequently. You do not want the bacon swimming in its own fat. If using a frying pan, use a spatula to hold the bacon in place while you pour the fat into a heat resistant container. (Make sure not to get any fat on the outside of the pan, as it could catch fire on the element). If using the oven, put your bacon on one of those trays that allows the fat to drain off, and put that on a baking sheet to catch the fat.
4. Cook smaller amounts at a time. This applies mostly to the frying pan method, as you will need to drain more frequently if you put more bacon in the pan. If you are cooking a lot of bacon, use the oven. If you are doing multiple batches in a frying pan, remember to rinse the pan with cold water between batches, so all bacon starts on a cold surface.
And that’s it! Follow these simple rules, and you will get crispy bacon every time.
Yours in Good Taste,
Erik Christensen