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Looking for the best way to cook bacon? Air Fryer Bacon is the way to go! The bacon is crispy and you won’t be cleaning up grease splatters all over the kitchen.
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Bacon belongs in it’s own food group, would you agree? It goes with anything for breakfast! It makes the perfect topping on sandwiches like a BLT or burgers for lunch, or crumbled and sprinkled on top of a salad, soup, or a baked potato for dinner
Air Fryer’s have become very popular over the last few years, and for many good reasons. There are so many delicious air fryer recipes. They give food the crispiness of oil frying, without the oil, and food cooks more evenly. However, the number one for owning an Air Fryer in our family is Air Fryer Bacon. We can’t get enough of it. It is one of my favorite ways to cook crispy bacon with no preheating. You can easily drain the excess grease out of the bottom of the air fryer. It is crispy, but still chewy enough to get the satisfying flavor our of every bite. In addition, the bacon is evenly cooked with no pieces of uncooked fat.
Ingredients in this Air Fryer Bacon Recipe
- Thick-Cut Bacon
- Optional: Maple Syrup
Ways to Cook Bacon
There are three ways we like to cook bacon in the kitchen. Here are the pros and cons of each:
Fried Bacon (in a skillet on the stove top or on a griddle)
- Pros: The bacon strips cook up nice and crispy. You can watch it cook and monitor the degree of doneness you prefer. Many pieces of bacon can be cooked at one time.
- Cons: It is messy and the bacon is greasy. Bacon grease splatters all over the stove, and even you and your clothes if you aren’t careful. The smell lingers in the house for hours.
Oven Cooked Bacon
- Pros: It is less messy because the grease is contained in the oven. The bacon doesn’t have to be monitored as closely as when frying, making it easier to prepare other food as the bacon cooks. A full sheet pan of bacon can be cooked at one time.
- Cons: The bacon doesn’t crisp up as nice, and it doesn’t cook as evenly. You need to have a rack to cook the bacon on so it isn’t sitting in the grease in the bottom of the sheet pan. It also takes longer to cook bacon in the oven, usually 15-18 minutes.
Air Fryer Bacon
- Pros: My new favorite way to cook bacon! The bacon cooks evenly and is crispy. It only takes 10 minutes to cook. Grease from the bacon drips through the rack as the bacon cooks, so the bacon comes out less greasy. The mess is contained to inside the air fryer, no splatter to clean up, which also keeps the smell of cooked bacon is more contained. We all love the smell of bacon, but not when it lingers for hours in the house.
- Cons: Depending on the size of the Air Fryer basket, you can only cook a small amount of bacon at a time. You may have to cook in multiple batches.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. For the bacon to air fry properly it needs to be flat and in a single layer in the basket. Make sure it is flat after you flip it as well.
You can spray the basket with a bit of oil.
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.
READ NEXT: 33+ Breakfast Ideas
Bacon Recipes
A slice of bacon is delicious on its own, but it also adds flavor to many other dishes. Here are a few of our favorite recipes using bacon:
How to Make Air Fryer Bacon
Air Fryer Bacon
Video
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6 slices bacon thick sliced
- 2 tbsp maple syrup (optional)
Instructions
- Place bacon in a single layer in the air fryer, try not to overlap pieces.
- Optional: brush a little maple syrup onto the bacon.
- Cook at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, turning once halway through.
- Carefully remove hot bacon onto a plate with a paper towel to cool.
Notes
Air Fryer Bacon Pros vs Cons
- Pros: The bacon cooks evenly and is crispy. It only takes 10 minutes to cook. Grease from the bacon drips through the rack as the bacon cooks, so the bacon comes out less greasy. The mess is contained to inside the air fryer, no splattering, which also keeps the smell of cooked bacon is more contained. We all love the smell of bacon, but not when it lingers for hours in the house.
- Cons: Depending on the size of the Air Fryer, you can only cook a small amount of bacon at a time.
I would only recommend this recipe for people who never fry bacon on the stove. I have learned how to properly fry bacon on the stove and do it often. I did a test of frying bacon in a frying pan and air frying bacon (with this recipe) at the same time. Only 3 pieces of bacon fit in my air fryer. I can cook 6 pieces in a skillet. The final product was clearly in favor of the pan-fried bacon. The ends of the air-fried bacon were way overdone and not edible. The air-fried bacon tasted more overcooked than the pan-fried bacon even though the pieces looked to be similar doneness. The cooking time was not much different. Set up and clean up of the air fryer was definitely more work than emptying the grease from the frying pan, putting some water in the pan for a few minutes, easily scrubbing the pan clean and washing it, and wiping the stove. The air fryer and rack have lots of holes and even emptying the grease from the air fryer was tricky. Too much work for 3 pieces of bacon.
I love air fryer bacon and refuse to make bacon any other way now:)
Great recipe for air fryer bacon. Love it!
I’ve never tried cooking bacon in an air fryer, so this is new to me. Can’t wait to try its crispy goodness though, so thank you for sharing!