How to Prevent Baked Bacon From Sticking to Your Wire Rack
I cook a lot of bacon. Sometimes I fry it (starting, of course, in a cold frying pan ), but more often I bake it on a wire rack installed inside a rimmed baking sheet. It lies flat, crunches evenly from edge to edge, and I don’t have to worry about grease splashing onto my pale, sensitive skin. This approach is safer and easier than frying (which is great for a lazy coward like me), but I’ve noticed that some bacon – especially the thinner bacon – tends to stick to the grate it’s on.
However, this is very easy to fix. You just need to nudge the bacon lightly – just once! – during its aging in the oven. Just lift it off the wire rack for a moment to make sure there is enough fat underneath the meaty portions of the bacon so that they don’t stick to the wire during crisp.
I usually do this after about five or ten minutes, depending on how thick my bacon is. (I’m trying to move the thin bacon closer to five minutes, as it cooks pretty quickly.) As soon as the bacon begins to curl and the fat begins to coat, I grab a tong or fork and carefully remove the strips from the counter, then put them back in place. The rendered fat runs down the strip of jerky pork, covering the entire surface, including where the meat meets metal. After that, I leave it alone until it is crispy to my liking and then serve it straight from the wire rack and it comes off easily. (I also put the fat in the fat jar – another benefit of baking bacon on a baking sheet.)