Using an air fryer to cook bacon is perfect when you just need a few slices, and want minimal mess to clean up and hands-off cooking. During the summer months I love making air fried bacon to cook up a few pieces for a couple of BLT’s. It’s less babysitting than a skillet, and it’s too hot to turn on the oven for my go-to oven method! With my foil-lined method, there’s also little to no mess to clean up. Just crumple up the foil and go! It works remarkably well for me, creating perfect bacon every time.
Ingredients and Equipment Needed
- Bacon – You can cook any type of bacon you like in the air fryer. Thicker bacon will obviously take longer to cook than thinner bacon.
- Air Fryer – This is my favorite air fryer. I like that it has a few modes, like bake and air fry.
How to Cook Bacon in an Air Fryer
- Prepare air fryer: You can certainly just place bacon directly on your drip tray in the air fryer, but I prefer to remove the tray and line the whole basket with foil. I think the bacon tastes better when it cooks it its own fat and the foil makes clean up a breeze.
- Quantity: It’s okay to overlap bacon a bit. It will shrink as it warms and when you flip it you can spread it out into a single layer again. My air fryer fits 8 slices nicely.
- Timing: In my air fryer, I have found that for standard bacon, cooking for about ten minutes at 350° is perfect. You’ll want to experiment in your own air fryer for the perfect timing, but that’s a good starting point. If you have thicker bacon, and you like it crispy, you’ll be cooking longer, more like 12-15 minutes.
- Flip bacon: Since we’re removing the tray and lining with foil, you don’t have air circulation underneath the bacon. For this reason you’ll want to open up your air fryer half way through and flip your bacon.
- Drain: Continue cooking until it’s your preferred level of done and drain on paper towels or a metal rack.
- Easy clean up: You can reserve your bacon grease if you’d like to use it for another purpose, or simply wait for it to cool and crumble up your foil and discard.
Storage and Other Tips
- Store cooked bacon in an airtight container in the fridge.
- This process is very flexible and customizable! Feel free to open the air fryer to check on your bacon, add more or less time, etc.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yep! You don’t want to pile it on top of each other, but you can certainly overlap a bit. The bacon will shrink in the first few minutes as the fat renders and then you can separate a bit more.
You can, but bacon grease tends to leak through parchment so you’ll have a little more to clean up.
You could certainly chop up raw bacon and throw it in the foil lined basket.
Yes! If your bacon is pre-cooked, just heat it for 1-2 minutes.
More Bacon Recipes You’ll Love!
Air Fried Bacon
Ingredients
- 8 slices bacon see notes
Instructions
- I like to remove the tray from my air fryer, simply to lower my bacon further away from the heating element to reduce splatters, and line my insert with foil. Alternately, you can simply place bacon on your tray/basket.
- Air fry bacon at 350°F for about 10 minutes, flipping over half way through until desired doneness is achieved.
- Keep in mind all air fryers cook differently, and thicker cut bacon will take longer to cook than thinner cut bacon.
- I suggest checking your bacon early to determine perfect cooking time depending on how crispy you like it.
- Use tongs to remove finished bacon and drip dry on a rack or drain on paper towels.
- Wait for bacon grease to cool and then discard foil. Or save warm oil in a container to re-use.
