Here's Why You Should Sous Vide Your Bacon

Ah, bacon! The king of breakfast meats continues to allure the world with its salty, crispy goodness, even though some bacon-y products out there do indicate that we might have gone just a little bit too bacon-crazy. But can you blame bacon fans, really? After all, it is delicious.

As befits a cultural food juggernaut of its stature, bacon has been cooked in almost every way you can imagine, and some of them even manage to be (relatively) healthy. If you like, you can cook it in a microwave. If you're in a pinch, you can even make bacon with a waffle iron. 

But how about sous vide? Sure, it may seem like a ridiculous thought to use the vacuum-bags-and-temperature-controlled-water technique on a food that's arguably best enjoyed fried to a delicious crisp. Still, don't diss it until you've tried it! There are plenty of foods you never thought to sous vide, and who knows? Bacon might just be one of them.

Per Chef Steps, sous vide bacon is not only good — it's pretty much the best bacon out there. However, it's not a dish you quickly throw together in a morning while waiting for your coffee to drip. As with most everything sous vide, the method takes time and patience. It's not too hard, though. All you need to do is take a package of bacon, and sous vide it until the next morning at 147 degrees Fahrenheit. Just use strips that come in a bag that's already vacuum-sealed, so you won't even need to do prep work. Once you're done, just open the bag and pan-sear one side of the bacon to delicious crispiness, to get that interplay of crispy and succulent textures.    

It might be tempting to write "overnight sous vide bacon" off as a gimmick. After all, there are tons of bacon-cooking methods that take mere minutes and provide delicious results. However, Serious Eats tested the recipe and agrees that there is something about sous vide bacon's peculiar combination of crispness and moistness that elevates it well beyond normal bacon, to the point that it virtually melts in your mouth. It's not an impatient eater's recipe by any means, but if you have the time and the gear, you can turn your bacon into what are essentially astoundingly delicious strips of smoked, cured confit pork belly.