This Sheet Pan Hack Will Make Baking Bacon Much Less Messy

How much do you love bacon? If you're anything like us, the answer is a lot. Fatty, pork bacon brings so much delight onto our plates, whether it be in the form of basic crispy strips to accompany our eggs, stirred into a creamy pasta carbonara, or sprinkled atop a potato soup.

For a long time, we went the classical route and fried our bacon on the stove top in a cast iron pan — and dealt with a grease-splattered stove every time. But more recently, we've switched to the no-muss, no-fuss method of baking bacon strips in the oven on a sheet pan. According to Cook's Illustrated, whose test kitchen determined that this is the very best way to produce crisp bacon, oven-cooked bacon comes out evenly cooked and produces a lot less mess. So now that you know that baked bacon is the way to go, read on for an additional tip that will yield even more perfect strips.

There are various methods used for baking bacon in the oven. Katie Berry of Housewife How-Tos slides a sheet pan of bacon strips into a cold oven, then blasts the heat to 425 degrees Fahrenheit, cooking it for about 10-15 minutes until crisp. Kitchn, meanwhile, suggests spreading the bacon across an oven-safe metal cooling rack, noting that the hot air circulating all around the bacon will produce extra-crispy strips.

Both of these methods are great; however, there's another one that produces even more uniform baked bacon. According to Eat This, Not That, busting out a second baking sheet can help your bacon slices lie flat. The site recommends using a slightly larger rimmed sheet pan on the bottom, on which you'll lay your bacon, then topping it with a slightly smaller sheet pan to keep the bacon from curling up while cooking. We're planning on trying it out at our next Sunday brunch.