Cover Your Bacon In Water For Texture Perfection

Salty, crispy and meaty, bacon is a beloved cured meat that can be eaten anytime. From accompanying your fried eggs in the morning to being wrapped around medallions of filet mignon for dinner, bacon can be eaten alone or incorporated in many recipes.

But while bacon is delicious, making crispy bacon at home can be rather messy. Thanks to its moisture and high-fat content, a pan of frying bacon can lead to a hot-oil-splattered kitchen, and no one likes wiping down stovetops and counters after breakfast. Furthermore, by the time the bacon fat is fully crisped up, the meat is sometimes too dry and crumbly.

However, there is one simple step you can do to minimize any splattering and also allow you to fry your bacon without burning the meat. By cooking bacon with water in a pan, you can make tender and crispy bacon with much less mess.

It seems counterintuitive to add water to a pan of bacon before cooking it. After all, you want crispy bacon, not boiled bacon. However, the water is there for a reason. Aside from preventing splatter of hot oil, the water helps dissolve the bacon fat and render it from the strips before boiling away, leaving you with strips of bacon that are easier to crisp with less mess. In addition, the water also keeps the meat of the bacon from getting too dry, leaving you with a crisp exterior and tender interior.

To start, lay your bacon flat on a frying pan, and add enough water to the pan to cover the bacon. Set the pan on high heat and turn down the heat to medium when the water starts to boil. Once the water has evaporated, turn the heat down to low and let the bacon crisp in the dry pan, flipping it when necessary. Turn off the heat when the bacon is done to your liking. Thanks to the lower heat needed to crisp the bacon, there is less splatter and less mess to clean up.

A batch of crispy bacon is great on its own, but there are so many dishes you can make with these salty, crispy, and tender strips. Try it as part of a grilled cheese alongside tomato slices for a delicious snack or lunch, or pair it with avocado, blue cheese, hard-boiled eggs and grilled chicken for the fantastic cobb salad. Use these bacon strips to garnish your bloody mary for Sunday brunch, or make a bacon-studded mac and cheese and give the dish a salty crunch with each bite.

If you want your bacon for dessert, try making chocolate-dipped bacon strips. First, melt dark chocolate in a double boiler, and place the bacon strips on top of the wire rack. Once melted, carefully pour the melted chocolate on the bacon with a ladle until covered. Sprinkle some coarse sea salt on each strip and wait for the chocolate to solidify and cool before turning the strips over and repeat the process.