Don’t Waste It: Bacon Mistakes You Might Be Making

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Don’t Waste It: Bacon Mistakes You Might Be Making

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Yes, it’s not the healthiest food out there, not even close, but it just might be the tastiest. Cooked bacon, fried bacon, crispy bacon are phrases that just get the stomach juices flowing and the mouthwatering. So don’t make any bacon mistakes when cooking, because you might be missing out on a lot of flavors!

Are you making any of the following bacon mistakes? I did make a lot of them, and I didn’t truly get what I was doing wrong. If my pan was bad or the bacon was not that great and so on. The only thing I wanted was to have some eggs and bacon, but I ended up with mushy, greasy, and not that crispy bacon. Can you think of anything sadder than that?

So what was my faux pas? A combination of multiple seemingly little mistakes, which might just lead to not so great fried bacon. Here’s what bacon mistakes you need to avoid if you want to have the culinary time of your life! Because we all deserve great bacon, not a mediocre plate!

Once you know how to avoid bacon mistakes, you’re in luck! We have so many bacon-based recipes for you!

7 bacon mistakes you should stop making

1. Starting off with cold bacon

Bacon is a combination of meat and fat. If you want them to cook properly together, then you need to start cooking it when it’s at room temperature. Here is how to prep your bacon-based meals from now on. 15 minutes before cooking, take out the bacon from the fridge and let it warm up. If you do this, fat will render properly during cooking, and your bacon will be just the right amount of crispy, without getting burnt.

Don’t Waste It: Bacon Mistakes You Might Be Making
Don’t drop cold bacon right into the pan. Let it get to room temperature first.

2. Choosing the wrong pan

You really don’t need a nonstick pan for cooking bacon, because of the large quantity of fat it contains. You also don’t want to cook bacon in an aluminum pan, because it gets hot too quickly: a sure way to have a bunch of burnt bacon on your hands. Choose a cast-iron skillet. It helps distribute the heat evenly and slowly.

3. Cooking it over high temperature

Speaking of heat, go for low to medium heat for the task of frying bacon. It’s the same reason: too much heat will burn the meat part of the bacon. And the fat won’t have enough time to liquify.

4. Dropping the bacon bomb in a hot environment

This is an honest mistake because we are taught this with most foods we cook! Drop the fries in heated oil. Preheat the oven for various dishes. Heat the skillet for the steak. But no. Not this time. When it comes to bacon, you want to slowly liquify the fat while cooking the meat. A hot skillet will seal in the fat. So what you want to do is to cook room temperature bacon in a room temperature skillet, so that the heating takes place gradually. Once there’s plenty of liquid fat in the pan and the white parts of the bacon have become translucent, you know you’re on the right path.

5. Crowding the pan

If you throw too much bacon in your skillet, it will crowd itself and will create steam. By cooking the bacon in that steam, you will be left with limp strips of ruined potential. I know it takes longer, but two or three strips in the pan at a time are more than enough. And they have room to cook up and become awesome.

When you crowd the pan, the other problem is that your strips of bacon will start to curl and fold in themselves, which means that they won’t cook evenly or get the right crispiness.

Don’t Waste It: Bacon Mistakes You Might Be Making
When you fry bacon, be patient and don’t crowd the pan, or the bacon will turn out badly cooked.

6. Forgetting that bacon is salty

If you’re making a complex dish with bacon as just one ingredient, stop and think before you season. Bacon is already pretty salty, which means that piling on too much extra salt could ruin your dish beyond repair. But don’t skimp on the salt either. Taste as you go and make sure that the flavors are balanced. There is no strict recipe for that, just your experience manifesting in your taste buds.

7. Burning the bacon

There’s a thin charred line between crispy, excellent bacon, and burnt bacon. But the burning of bacon only happens if you don’t keep an eye on the stove at all times. You should also remember that the fat in the bacon keeps cooking it for a short while even after you remove it from heat. So don’t wait for it to look exactly like you want it. Remove it from the pan just a touch sooner than that!

Don’t Waste It: Bacon Mistakes You Might Be Making
Bacon is one of those food items that is too easy to burn when frying.

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