Q. I usually fry up bacon on a skillet but we’re out at our cabin on the lake and we’ve discovered our propane stock is spent. That means no use of the BBQ or stove until we refill in a couple days. We do have a functioning microwave though and with the family expecting delicious bacon with our eggs each morning I find myself wondering just how to cook bacon in the microwave. I’m pretty sure it can be done as friends have done it before, but can you microwave bacon?
Can you microwave bacon?
A. Mmmmmm bacon. If it wasn’t for dogs, surely bacon would be many a man’s best friend. A meat product prepared from a pig and usually cured, fresh bacon can also be smoked, boiled or dried for weeks or months before it reaches your local grocery.
Bacon for breakfast is probably as popular as apple pie, and certainly bacon has been a staple to the American diet since the colonial period. Pigs are fairly simple to domesticate, and the brining/salting process that preserves bacon allowed the meat to thrive even in the days before refrigeration.
YES, You can put bacon in the microwave, but how you microwave it will depend on how you like your bacon. Do you like it fatty and soft, crispy and dry, or somewhere in between? Typically a microwave is going to give you crispy bacon with the fat with being soaked up by some paper towels under and over the bacon, or draining into the low end of a microwave safe bacon tray.
If you don’t mind your bacon a little more crispy than when done in a skillet, try this way:
- Lay 2 paper towels on a microwave safe plate or without the paper towels on a microwave safe bacon tray. The bacon tray lifts the bacon above the flat bottom of the tray so that fat drips down to the flat bottom and is not in contact with the bacon.
- Put your bacon on the towel covered plate or microwavable bacon tray. Whichever way you’re doing it, place a paper towel over the bacon as this will stop fat from splattering all over the inside of the microwave.
- Depending on your microwave, zap it for up to 1 minute per piece of bacon. Keep an eye on it after about 30 seconds so you can open the microwave before it’s totally dry and crispy – unless you love it totally dry and crispy – then you’ll watch to be sure it’s as you like it. You can always close the microwave and zap it for another 20-40 seconds if you find it’s not ready yet.
- Use oven mitts to remove the plate or bacon tray from the microwave. It will probably be quite hot.
- Remove the bacon with tongs, dispose of the paper towels or grease in the bacon tray and enjoy!
If you prefer your bacon a little softer and cooked in it’s own fat – as if fried in a skillet – try using a microwave safe glass dish. Many a bacon lover would have a fright at the idea of crispy bacon with all the fat drained out – like me – but I’ve microwaved bacon to satisfying effect before and will surely do it again.