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Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3 (ZReboot) recipe

Servings: Serves 2 or more.

Maybe this is not news to you, but it took me six decades to learn about oven bacon. In our family, my husband has always been the bacon maker. He’s great at getting it perfectly crispy. The drawback is the grease floats around the kitchen when you make bacon on the stove. This brilliant move keeps all the grease in your oven and on the parchment paper covering your cookie sheet!

Ingredients:

• Bacon
• Parchment paper (I originally used aluminum foil in this recipe but dieter Mary Kay reminded me that parchment paper is a much greener choice – and she’s right!)
• A large cookie sheet with sides

Let’s talk bacon for a minute. This recipe can be done with thick cut bacon or thin. I prefer thin because I want super crispy without getting too stiff. I also only eat bacon that has NO nitrites and NO nitrates. It’s not hard to find. Even Oscar Mayer has one called Natural. It’s uncured which is better for you.

Let’s admit it, all bacon is good. Cured or uncured. Some is just healthier.
Here in Tennessee, the King of bacon is Benton’s.

Instructions:

Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper. You can also use aluminum foil, but with tin foil being so non environmentally friendly, both in production, not being recycled and not breaking down ever, parchment paper is a much greener substitution. You’ll want the paper to run up the sides a bit forming a lip. This will make clean up the easiest.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Take the bacon out of the package and lay each strip on the cookie sheet. You want to make sure the bacon strips are not touching each other. This way they will cook evenly. If you don’t want grease spatters in your oven, put a second piece of parchment paper on top. You can only cook about 8 strips on a cookie sheet so for a crowd you might need two cookie sheets.

Put the cookie sheet with the bacon laid out on it on the rack in your oven. With thin bacon it will take about 12 – 14 minutes. Watch it toward the end and stop cooking it when you like the color and crispiness. Thick bacon will take more like 15 minutes depending on how thick it is. I like mine pretty brown.

Take the cookie sheet out of the oven. I take out a plate and cover it with a double-thick piece of paper towel. Take the bacon pieces off the cookie sheet and place them in a row over the paper towels to drain. Eat on demand.

Back to the cookie sheet. You have a few options. One is to just let it sit until the grease firms up. Then take it off the cookie sheet and toss it.

Another option is to let it sit while you have your meal but then carefully pull up the edges on all four sides and carefully carry that to your trash bin and put it in. The bacon grease won’t be solidified yet, but it can be transferred without mess.

If you are totally successful, your cookie sheet might need a quick wipe but the mess stayed on the parchment paper.

Enjoy your bacon!

Cheers,