Why Does Cooking Bacon in Water Work? The addition of water keeps the initial cooking temperature low and gentle, so the meat retains its moisture and stays tender as the fat renders. Plus, since the water helps render the fat, there will be significantly less splatter as your bacon finishes in the pan.
According to Dawn Perry, Real Simple's food director, cooking bacon in water could keep it tender on the inside while still crisp on the outside. How? The bacon fat would render into the water. Once the water evaporates, the bacon would crisp in its own fat.
Test #1: With Water
Results: Crispy and slightly chewy bacon. The strips held their shape better than bacon cooked without water, and, perhaps more importantly, the bacon fat didn't splatter at all.
Give it a quick rinse, then bake it
Rinsing with cold water removes a little bit of the fat from the bacon, which can help reduce shrinkage. However, Life Hacker notes that the cold-water-rinse is less important than baking it in the oven and that rinsing bacon can often lead to lessening its flavor.
Once the bacon is in the pan, add just enough water to completely coat the bottom of the pan and cook over medium-high heat until the water has evaporated. Reduce the heat to medium and cook the bacon until crisp.
Water is added to bacon for one reason: to make more cash. It isn't just the added water that boosts profits, it's the time saved in the process. Making proper bacon, whether wet- or dry-cured, is a lengthy business.
The biggest obstacle to frying bacon is the relationship between heat and fat. If you cook it low and slow for too long, too much fat may render off, resulting in tough, jerky-like strips. If you fry too fast, the fat may seize up and get gristly, or worse, the strips could burn.
The Classic Method: In a Skillet
At room temperature, bacon just cooks up better (just like steak). 2: Don't preheat the skillet. Lay out the bacon strips without overlapping in a cold pan. This helps the fat render slowly, for consistently cooked strips.
One common approach to fixing bacon that's too salty is to submerge it in cold water for at least two hours. This process helps in drawing out excess salt from the meat. It's essential to refrigerate the container while soaking the bacon and test its saltiness afterwards.
Cook bacon in water.
Keep the heat at medium high while the water cooks off and turn down to medium until the bacon is browned and cooked evenly through. The water cools down the cooking temperature, which helps keep the bacon tender.
Simple! Healthier than Fried. The grease from the bacon drips off and is collected below the rack, which means it stays off your bacon and out of your body. I also pat the bacon to remove some extra grease and keep it crisp.
Bacon cooks best low and slow. Whether on the stove or in the oven, don't cook it at a temperature that's too high or you risk uneven cooking, or worse, burned bacon.
Preheat skillet: preheat a large nonstick skillet over medium/high eat. Cook bacon in pan: palce 5-6 pieces of bacon in your pan, making sure they are not overlapping. Then, cook for: 4-5 minutes for a perfectly cooked piece of bacon, 2-3 minutes for rubbery bacon, or 5-6 minutes for a crispy piece of bacon.
Don't preheat!
Starting with a cold oven ensures that the bacon will cook slowly like it needs to.
Montaño recommends cooking your bacon over medium heat in a pan with a lot of surface area. “Don't crowd the pan,” she says. "Drain the fat off as it renders into a heat resistant dish. This serves two purposes: a dry pan will crisp the bacon and you will have bacon fat for future projects.”
The secret is pre-cooking your bacon
According to Epicurious, par-cooking it in the oven is the preferred method of many restaurant owners. Once it's cooked, they layer the bacon slices on paper towels to absorb the fat and refrigerate.
“The water prevents the temperature from getting too high, which gives the fat time to render out,” he explains. “So, the meat and the fat finish cooking at the same time. Once the water completely evaporates, the bacon gets nice and crispy, the meat is not overcooked or burnt, the fat is perfectly rendered.”
This white residue is water that has been added in the curing process. It shouldn't be there if you buy dry cured.
The best pan for stovetop bacon is a cast iron skillet. As with fried chicken, cast iron has a symbiotic relationship with bacon. The cast iron cooks the bacon with minimal to no sticking and has an easy cleanup (at least, it's easy if your cast iron is well-seasoned).