Frying Bacon

Preparation

See related blog post for photos of the entire process.

Most people know how to fry bacon. I am one of those people now. I was NOT one of those people five years ago. In fact, I completely embarrassed myself trying to fry bacon in front of a former employee. I was a nanny for a guy who was a chef for the Library of Congress. …not just a lowly line cook, mind you….he was a full on chef. (They paid me $30,000+ a year to watch their kiddo, so he was making quite a tidy sum I’m guessing…) Anyway, I was cooking lunch for his 3 year old and he happened to be home. I decided to make BLT’s. I didn’t know that you shouldn’t fry bacon on HIGH heat. So I burned the bacon and filled the house with smoke…SO embarrassing…

I eventually learned how to fry bacon correctly. It starts with a pan on MEDIUM to maybe medium-high heat. Lay out the bacon closely, but not touching (or they will become friends, bond together and be hard to flip).
See how those strips in the back are starting to bubble just a bit? That is good. Here go a few more…
When they start browning on the bottom they are almost ready to flip.

Flip the strips one by one with a fork and fry the other side. As soon they have some froth on top, light brown all over and shriveled up a bit, pull it off quickly and get it onto a plate lined with paper towels (to catch the grease).

If you are being more precise, you could have several plates to line the bacon up on to dry so that it doesn’t clump together, but I didn’t need to be precise with this recipe.

After you finish pulling the bacon out of the pan, make sure you turn the burners off! I let the grease sit in the pan until cool, then slide it off with a spatula and save it for things like sliding grease under the skin of a turkey or making a pot of beans taste delicious. The grease will freeze too and also makes good suet bakes with birdseed during winter. Do not use bacon fat suet in the summer because it might rot and/or attract meat eaters.