It’s so easy to make bacon in an air fryer or toaster oven. It tuns out just like the best pan-fried bacon.

Social Learning:

This air frying method is impressively quick. If you start the bacon, by the time it’s done, you can have coffee, toast, juice, warm plates, room temperature butter, and scrambled eggs on the table just in time to bring the still-piping-hot bacon to the table. If you use a toaster oven, you’ll get the same results. It will just take more time.

Scrambled eggs, by the way: place two plates in the sink and run very hot water over them. Let it pool onto them. Leave them bathe in the hot water. Meanwhile, 2 eggs, a light handful of shredded Parmesan, salt, pepper. Beat with a fork. Preheat a nonstick, curved-sided skillet, add the egg mixture with a pat of butter. Scramble slowly. Stop when they’re not quite as done as you’d prefer. (They’ll finish in the residual heat of the pan as you quickly dry the dishes and plate the eggs.

This air frying method dirties a lot of dishes. The same amount as the toaster oven method, plus the air fryer basket, and whatever you’re going to place the basket on when you remove it from the oven – like maybe a sheet pan – because it’s going to be wet with oil on the bottom. No big deal, though … it all cleans up pretty easily if you get right on it after breakfast, before it’s had a time to congeal and/or really stick.  

All of this beats frying the bacon in a pan, because it’s unattended and there’s less spatter. And you get the same or better results. 

Cooking:

• The foil isn’t necessary. It just makes cleanup easier.
• The water prevents the rendered bacon fat from burning. That will help you keep your oven clean.
• Every oven is configured differently. You want the bacon in the middle of the oven, and the roaster underneath it, as close as you can get while still leaving space for air to circulate.
• You don’t have to have your bacon in the oven while it’s preheating, but the bacon doesn’t care, and it’s easier this way.
• You’ll need to practice this method before you can depend on it, so that you get your bacon exactly to the level of crispiness that you prefer.

Leftovers:

Bacon gets along with loads of things, so having some left over is no problem. One of my favorite tricks is to add a slice of leftover bacon to a nonstick pan, let it render a tiny bit of oil, and then fry a sunny-side-up egg in the pan along side it.  

Servings:

The standard serving is two-to-three slices. In my heyday, I could’ve eaten a full half-pound of bacon without blinking an eye. But currently, I’m embracing a philosophy of incompleteness, and would be satisfied with a single slice, so long as it’s a thick-cut slice that my local butcher makes in-house. (I said “incompleteness,” not “savagery.”)

Breville Smart Oven / Air Fryer Pro (BOV900) Review

TLDR: I’m happy with it.

It’s functional, versatile, easy to use, doesn’t heat up the house as much as a traditional oven does, and it’s probably more efficient that using a traditional oven, if only because it’s so much smaller. But don’t get me wrong: it’s not small. It has a cubic foot of interior that’ll fit a 9×13-inch baking pan. 

Here are some tips on how to use it. 

1. It comes with several useful pans and racks, but I suggest that you purchase two quarter sheet pans. The oven comes with a short-sided roasting pan that will do most everything a quarter sheet pan will do, but I like the shorter sides of a sheet pan for some things. Plus, having two sheet pans will allow you to have them both in the oven at once.
2. You can’t activate any of the oven’s functions without setting a timer, and the oven shuts down when the countdown is up. In other words, you can’t just turn it on and leave it on indefinitely, like you can a traditional oven. What’s more though, it immediately starts counting down once it finishes its preheat cycle. It does beep at you when the countdown begins, but if you don’t happen to be there right at that moment, you wind up losing time on your countdown. However, you can adjust the timing at any time during the countdown. So if you get your buns in the oven and find you’re missing a minute, you can just dial it back to where it should be. You can do the same thing if you’re near the end of the countdown and see that you need more time. Just dial yourself as much time as you’d like. A kitchen timer will help you keep track of this, which is fine … although I wish you didn’t have to rely on one, and that more flexibility was baked into the oven instead. If the oven does shut down, and you need more time, just press “start.” It will reactivate whatever function you were using, with all the same settings, and so long as the oven hasn’t cooled down yet, it will skip the preheat. If you don’t want to deal with any of this, just set the countdown for way, way more time than you need, and use a kitchen timer to time your bake. I do see all of this as an inconvenience, but because the workarounds are so easy, it doesn’t stop me from loving the oven. 
3. Like any toaster oven, it’s awkward to clean. However, the interior as well as the racks and pans (which are not dishwasher safe) that come with it are stick and stain resistant. Your best bet is to stay on top of things. Wipe it down once it’s cool, each time you use it. So far, this has worked perfectly. The pans and the oven still look perfect, even though they’ve gotten loads of use.
4. When it comes to hand-washing the air fryer basket, you’ll find that it will shred any sponge. Plus, it’s large – so unless you have an especially large sink, you’ll have a hard time soaking it. I’ve found, though, that a nylon cleaning brush works perfectly. You’ll have to experiment with the direction: it will work smoothly in only one diagonal direction.
5. It’s pretty much taken over all the oven work in my kitchen. So far, the things I’d rather do in my traditional oven are these: bake cookies and finish off a protein. The BOV won’t accommodate a full-size cookie sheet, and I’d rather bake more cookies at once. Regarding protein, I love to pan fry things and then finish them off in the oven, and this is simply easier to do with an oven that’s directly beneath the stovetop.
6. If you like to use a corded temperature probe, you should know that – especially when using convection – the BOV can easily exceed the safe temperature for a silicone-wrapped probe cord, but you should be safe with a metal-wrapped cord. If you have a silicone-wrapped cord, check the specs for upward heat limits.

Bacon in an Air Fryer or Toaster Oven

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, Kesor. Thank you, ⌘+C. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #2 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs. 

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