Who doesn’t love bacon? This crispy and greasy piece of meat is delicious on its own and is the perfect addition to practically any meal.
If you’re just purchased a griddle or have had one for a while, you can fry up the crispiest bacon on that appliance. The oven and frying pan are great tools for cooking a minimal amount of bacon, but the griddle is the way to go if you want to make a lot of bacon.
If you’ve never tried this before and are interested in learning how to fry bacon on your griddle, keep reading.
What You’ll Need
The good thing about frying bacon on a griddle is the materials you’ll need are limited. Besides your handy dandy griddle, you’ll also need:
- However much bacon you need
- A plate
- Paper towels
- Tongs
Step 1: Preheat Your Griddle
You can’t cook bacon on a cold griddle. The first step to crispy bacon is to preheat your griddle. You’ll want to preheat it to 300-350 degrees Fahrenheit.
If you’re not sure what temperature to choose between 300 and 350, the best method is to start low and then raise it if you feel like you need to.
You’ll know your griddle has reached the set temperature when you can drop a little water on the griddle, and it sizzles away.
Step 2: Place the Bacon on the Griddle
Take your tongs and place each piece of bacon onto the preheated griddle. Be sure to leave enough room between each piece so they don’t overlap. If the slices of bacon overlap, some pieces may cook unevenly.
Step 3: Let the Bacon Cook
Now the waiting game begins. You’ll want to leave the bacon on the griddle for a few minutes before beginning to flip each piece over.
Step 4: Flip the Bacon Frequently
After the bacon has sat on one side for a few minutes, you can start flipping the bacon over with your tongs.
Flipping the bacon over often while it’s cooking can help ensure that the meat cooks thoroughly on both sides. Some people say you only need to flip the bacon once to ensure it’s cooked on both sides, but others state that flipping it frequently is the better method.
You can do whatever feels more comfortable for you. Regardless of which you choose, you at least need to flip the bacon once to ensure it’s cooked on both sides.
Step 5: Take the Bacon Off the Griddle
How long your bacon takes to cook may vary. Experts say that bacon should be finished cooking after ten to fifteen minutes. If you want your bacon a little crispier, you may want to leave it on the griddle longer.
The best way to know whether your bacon is finished or not is to use a meat thermometer. If you have a meat thermometer, you can use that to check to see if your bacon has reached 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
If it has, it’s ready to be removed from the griddle.
If you don’t have a meat thermometer, that’s okay. You can still figure out whether your bacon is finished or not simply by looking at the meat.
You’ll need to look at the bacon fat. Those white lines on the bacon should be translucent.
In addition to that, you’ll want the actual meat to be a reddish-brown color and crispy. That is if you like crispy bacon.
If you like slightly less crispy bacon, you’ll still need to check for the correct coloring, but you can take the bacon off earlier than those who love crispy bacon.
If you notice that some or all of your bacon pieces still have a pink color, you need to let it cook for a little bit longer.
When you’re ready to remove the bacon from the griddle, you’ll want to place it onto a plate that has a paper towel on it. The paper towel helps to absorb any excess grease from the bacon.
Step 6: Time to Eat Bacon
Once your bacon has sat on the plate with a paper towel for a few minutes, you’re ready to serve your bacon and eat.
Frying Bacon on a Griddle FAQ
Frying bacon on a griddle is very easy. All you have to do is heat the griddle and then let the bacon cook while you flip it often. Even though it’s pretty easy, it’s normal to still have some questions about the process.
What Temperature Should You Fry Bacon at?
When you’re cooking bacon, the best temperature to fry bacon at is between 300 and 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Some people say that the sweet spot for bacon frying temperature is 325 degrees, but you can go up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Why Can’t I Fry Bacon at a Higher Temperature?
Well, you can if you want. No one is going to stop you except maybe your bacon-loving friend. But keep in mind that just because you raise the temperature doesn’t mean it will be any crispier than if you cook it at 300 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In fact, if you cook bacon at a temperature higher than 350 degrees, you run the risk of your bacon burning. No one wants to eat heavily burnt bacon.
What’s the Best Kind of Bacon to Fry on a Griddle?
The best bacon to fry on a griddle is traditional pork bacon. The fat content of pork bacon acts as a natural non-stick material and allows the bacon to get really crispy without hardly any effort on your part.
You can still fry delicious turkey bacon and vegetarian bacon on a griddle, but you may need to add oil or another fat to ensure they crisp up as you want.
Why Do I Need to Put Bacon on a Paper Towel?
If you really don’t want to, you don’t have to. People use a paper towel on a plate to help remove any excess bacon grease from the finished product. If you don’t mind consuming extra bacon grease, then feel free to skip the paper towel.
Why Fry Bacon on a Griddle
The flat surface of the griddle will allow you to make an easy flip. Due to the minimum fine edges of the griddle, it will allow you to flip it around with ease using a nice pair of silicone tongs. Using these tongs, it will allow you to not scratch the surfaces on your griddle.
You can easily flatten your bacon. A flat surface means flat bacon. It will always be a whole lot different when you eat your bacon evenly cooked compared to pans that edges are going up. Well, surely frying pans will make your bacon be unequally cooked.
Fats can quickly drain out and be saved. A lot of modern griddles are sloped so that the oil greases down at the bottom as the oil reservoir. Bacon oil can be a lifesaver for later cooking. It will suffice in giving you a lot of cooking oil for future fries of eggs and veggies helping achieve meatier tastes for other dishes that you would like to try on.
Oil splattering-free frying. Unlike frying pans which accumulate the oil from bacon during cooking that can splatter and burn you. Most modern griddles come now in sloped surfaces that will allow easy draining of these very hot greases. Plus when bacon gets drowned from oil, it doesn’t get the desired crisp we all wanted. Less oil in bacon means healthier. Right?
You can cook a lot more at once. Cooking pans will only allow you 3-5 strips, but when you have a family of five or more, surely you need to cook more at once. Isn’t it nice to cook rectangle-shaped food on a rectangle surface that will allow you to perfectly fit a lot of it? That will be easier for you when you know how to fry bacon on a griddle.
