Render that fat! The secret to perfectly cooked bacon

Have you ever had bacon that just dissolves in your mouth, or adds a tangible crunch to your burger? Chances are, that cook used one simple trick to cooking bacon - rendering the fat. Okay, now gimme the bacon without the sizzle!

Here’s what you do and how it works - when you start your bacon cooking on a cold skillet, or put it in the oven before you turn it on, the fat slowly separates from the meat as a liquid rather than crisping up. Allowing this fat to cook out at a slower, lower heat keeps your bacon from burning, and gives you the rendered fat that you can set aside for other dishes.

Best rule of thumb would be when skillet cooking, start with your bacon in a cold cast iron and turn the heat to a low/medium as the cast iron heats and takes on some of the heat distribution. Give about 10-15 minutes and the bacon will begin to crisp up like you are used to. An even easier method is to lay the bacon on a rimmed cooking sheet and pop it in a cold oven and turn it on to 350 degrees. After about 20 minutes (depending on your oven), you will have the world’s most buttery-crisp bacon that is hard to not just pop in your mouth as you pull it off the pan.

Hopefully this tip has rendered you a better bacon baker, and you can pair it with your favorite dish. We all know that bacon makes everything better.