I’m going to start this article with a simple premise: Cooking bacon is not rocket science. Yet, we live in the age of (unnecessary) cooking hacks so, right now, either cooking bacon in water or rinsing bacon in water before cooking is all the rage. Why do this? Water is either supposed to keep the bacon from shrinking or make it more crispy. Which of these is supposed to happen depends on the person presenting this startling and revolutionary life hack. Sarcasm aside, bacon is full of fat. When you cook bacon the fat melts, or renders, and that is why the bacon shrinks. Unless you want to eat unrendered and fatty bacon, you want to let your bacon shrink.
If you rinse your bacon in water all you will do is to likely rinse off any seasoning rub and perhaps even some of the salt. You may also warm up the bacon because the tap water will often be warmer than the fridge. And, of course, you’ll have wet bacon. Some bacon is injected with extra water. You’ll find that the kind of bacon injected with extra water is the worst kind of bacon.
Thin-Sliced Bacon vs. Thick-Sliced Bacon
You see, the reason some bacon producers put water in the bacon is to plump it up and make it seem like you are getting more bacon! The dryer your bacon from the start, the more bacon goodness you are getting. And since this will likely be a higher quality product to start with, it will have a better meat to fat ratio and thus will shrink less and turn out better once cooked.
This water trick is more often done with thin-sliced bacon. Most mass-market bacon is thin-sliced. The thinner the slice, the higher the fat-to-meat ratio, which means the harder it is to render off the fat in a way that yields a nice crisp on the outside, and chewy on the inside…heck, thin bacon hardly has an ‘inside.’
So, instead of weird hacks, get thick-cut bacon. Yes, it costs more, but you are getting more for your money, and typically, no water is injected into it.
Water Slows Down the Bacon Cooking Theory
We’ve got shrinking out of the way: you can’t prevent it and shouldn’t want to. However, another problem is bacon curling up while you cook it making it hard to cook evenly. If you’ve ever had to try to mash down part of your bacon strips to get them to make contact with the hot pan and cook evenly because they are curling up, you know what I mean. That’s easily solved, and I’ll get to that.
However, one theory as to why you should cook your bacon in a little water until the water evaporates, is that the water makes the bacon cook more slowly so that the fat can render slowly, and this ends up making crispier bacon and doing some other magical things. Once again, it’s not rocket science. I, personally, don’t want my bacon overly crispy. I like it crispy-chewy. But anything you gain from starting your bacon at a boil you could achieve by cooking it on a lower heat.
Most everyone cooks their bacon on scorching heat, anyway. Notice that we’ve skipped over even trying a lower heat and went right to water? Of course! Because this kind of ‘hack’ seems counter-intuitive and thus sells better. What does water do for your bacon? Nothing that patient cooking can’t do.
How To Keep Bacon From Curling Up
The reason bacon curls up when you cook it is a temperature difference between one side and the other. When you turn over the bacon to the colder side, contraction occurs causing the bacon to curl up. This is simple to counter. Start your bacon in a cold pan and cook it slowly over medium-low heat. Do NOT turn the bacon over until it has started to brown and crisp up on the side you are cooking. When you do this, you allow the side that is facing up to heat up well enough so that it’s not a drastically different temp than the cooking side. Now, when you turn it over, it won’t curl up so badly. Once you flip the bacon and cook the other side for a little while, you can turn up the heat to speed up things, if you’d like.
Cooking bacon is not something you need to spend a great deal of your time trying to master. Simple food: simple cooking. Start with the best quality bacon you can get, so that you aren’t paying for water. Place it in a cold pan or on a cold griddle and then cook it on medium-low heat. Wait until one side starts to brown. Flip it, and continue cooking, flipping again as needed or desired. This is a lot easier than waiting for water to evaporate, potentially rinsing off tasty seasonings, etc. No hacks are required unless sensible cooking born from experience is a hack. Going out on a limb, I believe that these myriad unnecessary cooking hacks are designed to appeal to those who are new to cooking and have failed to learn the basics. A person who has cooked bacon many times would probably not be looking for a YouTube video on how to make bacon better.
In other words, start with good bacon. Better bacon has a better fat-to-meat ratio and will cook up more crispy and tastier. And if you want it less crispy, same deal. So, if wet bacon with water added is not the best bacon, then why would you want to wet your bacon before cooking it?
If you do want bacon with more “meat” and less fat, but still a good ratio, you can opt for center-cut bacon. It’s more expensive but will give you a meatier bacon.