Should you cook bacon in an air fryer? We test it

On Sunday, Yahoo published an article that sent bacon sarnie lovers into crisis mode. In it, registered dietitian Brenda Peralta suggested that an air fryer should not be used to cook bacon.

Yahoo appears to have deleted the original article, but many other publications have picked up the advice in articles, including the Express and the Daily Record.

We decided to test it.

First of all, the dietitian’s warning against frying bacon was divided into several points:

Bacon is a fatty food and grease can cause “smoking or spattering.”
A slice of bacon is a “small and delicate food, and it can be difficult to flip or remove from the fryer basket without breaking it.”
“The air fryer basket may not be large enough to accommodate a large amount of bacon. This can make the bacon difficult to cook evenly and it can also produce a lot of smoke and odors.

We disagree with the dietitian’s description of bacon as “small and delicate,” which are not words typically associated with one of the healthiest ingredients in a fry-up.

Let’s also note that a set of silicone tongs will help you remove bacon from a fryer basket as easily as from a frying pan. You can buy them from Amazon UK (£6.99) and Amazon US ($13.99).

But we could definitely test whether cooking bacon makes an air fryer smoke and how cooking in the air fryer compares to cooking in the oven or pan.

For the bacon-making tests, we cooked sliced bacon and back bacon, because we pride ourselves on our thoroughness and because our tester was happy to eat bacon sandwiches all morning.

Fry bacon in a pan

Cooking time: 5:30 a.m.
Cleaning: Quite easy
What bacon smell did the kitchen smell like afterwards? Very

I’ll be honest. I’ve never cooked bacon before. But what I’ve discovered is that it’s almost impossible to mess up. As a recipe, it’s the exact opposite of a cheese soufflé. Give most meat eaters a bacon sandwich, and they’ll be much more likely to say “Thank you very much” than “What cooking method did you use to prepare this?” »

The first test involved frying bacon in a pan. I had read that bacon contains enough of its own fat that it doesn’t need extra oil when cooking. However, it welded itself to the pan almost immediately, so thanks to whoever spread this lie.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

I added a little oil and the bacon happily began cooking. The only downside was that I had to get up and flip the slices several times.

As the bacon cooked in oil and its own fat, excess oil had to be wiped away before serving.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Rating: 8/10 – Quick, easy and foolproof. I think I could teach my cat this.

Cooking bacon in the oven

Cooking time: 30 minutes at 175C/350F
Cleaning: Very fast but a bit useless
What bacon smell did the kitchen smell like afterwards? Slightly

I followed the cooking tips from AllRecipes, which I chose because it was one of the first to appear in a search.

It suggested a cooking temperature of 175°C/350°F and what seemed like an almost absurdly long cooking time of 30 minutes.

In my opinion, if you’re going to eat a bacon sandwich, you want to accomplish the task as quickly as possible, without having time to regret or Google arterial disease. You don’t want to sit around for half an hour contemplating your mortality.

Given the long baking time, this must also be the most expensive way to bake a few rashers, unless there’s a London restaurant serving them covered in gold flakes for £50.

I placed the bacon strips on a foil-lined baking sheet – but you can also use parchment paper – and after 15 minutes they were still pale, flabby, and barely acquainted with the heat of the oven. I returned them after 20 minutes and went back to WebMD.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

The bacon still wasn’t perfectly crispy after 30 minutes, so I gave it another 5, then served it anyway, on the grounds that it was a) cooked enough to not cause death to short term, at least and b) bacon, and whatever.

Cleanup was easy, but I felt a little guilty about sending a length of foil to the landfill for such dismal cooking.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Rating: 3/10 – Life is too short.

Cooking Bacon in an Air Fryer

Cooking time: Striped bacon 5 minutes, rear bacon 8 minutes at 200°C/390°F
Cleaning: Quite easy
What bacon smell did the kitchen smell like afterwards? Slightly

I used the first coking instructions I spotted, from BBC Good Food, laid the bacon strips directly on the crispier plates and set the air fryer.

One thing the dietitian is spot on about is the limited cooking space an air fryer will provide for your rashers. Shaves should not overlap or be placed on top of each other during cooking.

In an average single-drawer air fryer, you’ll probably have enough space for three large strips of bacon or four small strips of striped bacon. It’s nothing less than a frying pan.

And if you have a two-drawer air fryer, you can double the quantity.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Ultimately, I cooked a smaller number of rashers because I didn’t want to kill my food tester, who doubles as my husband.

I used my trusty Ninja FlexDrawer, which allowed me to cook two types of bacon at the same time, using different cooking times, and time them to finish at the same time.

But even in a single-drawer air fryer, it’s so fast that you can cook two batches and clean up in less time than it takes to cook in the oven.

After reading the dietitian’s advice about the dangers of smoking and spitting bacon, I was on high alert and half expected to see my air fryer burst into flames and start singing in Latin .

But it was absolutely fine. The oil from the bacon was leaking under the crisper and wasn’t hot enough to smoke.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

If your air fryer is smoking, it’s usually a sign that it needs a good cleaning. If the cooking area appears to be in good condition, brush food debris from the heating coil above with a soft brush or dry sponge (but only once cooled).

Having the fat drip off also meant the bacon wasn’t as greasy at the end of cooking.

In fact, the only problem with using an air fryer is that the circulating hot air can cause the bacon slices to collapse while cooking, but you can use a pair of tongs to flip them.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Rating: 9/10 – Even easier than cooking in a pan, because it doesn’t require supervision and an alarm notifies you when it’s ready.

Tester comments

All the prepared bacon was delivered, in sandwich form, to a tester. The tester was less satisfied with the oven-baked bacon sandwich than the skillet- and fryer-cooked sandwiches.

But in all honesty there were no complaints, just a lot of food noise. Overall, we’d say baking is the worst option because it’s slow and expensive. It’s probably only worth it if the bacon is just part of a larger meal. But air frying bacon is totally fine, as long as your air fryer is clean and you don’t clutter the food.

If you want advice on buying an air fryer, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got a roundup of the best two-drawer air fryers, the best Ninja air fryers, the best air fryer ovens, and the best air fryers in every category.