Cooking bacon in a frying pan can produce crispy, delicious results but can also make an absolute mess and take longer than necessary. The same goes for the oven and air fryer.
Instead, many food enthusiasts recommend using the microwave to get the job done, especially when only cooking a few rashers.
Although it seems counterintuitive, bacon crisps up beautifully in the microwave oven. Plus, you won’t splatter your stovetop with grease while cooking it.
If you just want a few slices of crunchy bacon, the microwave is the quickest, cleanest, and easiest way to prepare it.
Cookbook author Kathryn Doherty posted on her food blog, Family Food On The Table, to share her love of cooking bacon using a “better method”: the microwave.
She said: “Microwave bacon is so quick and easy. You can do just a couple of slices or up to about 10 at a time. The pieces come out cooked to perfection and they stay nice and flat and straight.
“You can control the exact doneness you want, pulling out your bacon earlier or cooking it longer to get it to the cooked level and crispiness you desire.
“There’s no oil splattering and burning, no big pans to scrape and clean, no shrivelled sad bacon, and no pieces that are half raw and half burnt.”
The rule of thumb for cooking bacon this way is one minute per slice, so cooking just two to three pieces will take about two to three minutes.
However, thick-cut bacon is going to take longer than a regular slice that’s much thinner. You’ll need to adjust accordingly.
For this method, Kathryn uses paper towels and a microwave-safe plate. She puts a double layer of paper towels down and adds the bacon strips.
Kathryn then says she tops it with a single layer of paper towel to cover the bacon before putting it into the microwave.
The paper towels “help absorb the grease and prevent a total mess” in your microwave. The plate keeps the bacon lifted off the glass tray so it doesn’t get so greasy.
If you have family members with different tastes – someone likes it half raw, and someone else prefers it super done and extra crispy – you can make both with this method.
