Crispy Air Fryer Bacon
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Best Air Fryer Bacon Recipe
OMG we’ll make this short and quick: Cooking bacon in the air fryer is amazing! Making Crispy Air Fried Bacon in the air fryer is a game changer for so many reasons. First of all, the bacon comes out crispy and fantastic! You can customize the texture if your bacon by lowering the temperature. So there’s something for everyone when it comes to personalizing bacon crispness. Second of all, clean up is WAY easier than cooking it on the stove top. All splatters are perfectly contained in the air fryer basket. No messy cooktop!
Breakfast is Ready! Video on Air Fryer Bacon and Air Fryer Baked Eggs:
How to Cook Bacon in the Air Fryer?
Add a bacon slices in single layer. Add as much as your air fryer allows, but don’t let the bacon touch. All the details are in the recipe box below.
Left – 3.7qt. Right – 5.8qt.
Before and After! Don’t crowd the basket with bacon or you will have excess oil burning. Thus, smoking.
What temperature to cook bacon?
There’s several schools of thought for cooking bacon and every air fryer guide or manufacturer has their own recommended temperature. We have some quick and easy temperature guidelines to follow for general results for bacon crispness. All details are in the recipe box below. Remember: test 1 piece of bacon first and see what your preferred temperature and time is. After that, you’re an expert and can customize the timing to your favorite crispness.
Problems with cooking bacon in the air fryer?
The only problem we can think of is that if you cook too much bacon at once at a higher temp, you might get some smoking. Make sure to have the air fryer in a well ventilated kitchen or under the vent hood. It is more contained then when you pan fry the bacon, but the air fryer will still emit bacon steam. And only other issue is that if you walk away or don’t flip the bacon, you might get burned bacon.
How to Prevent Air Fryer Bacon from Excess Smoking?
- We have not had bacon smoking issues. But we think that if you cook too much bacon at once, all the oil will cause splattering, thus smoking. Try not to cook more than 4-6 pieces at a time for a large air fryer. And for smaller air fryer, try cooking 2-3 pieces at a time. The logic is simple, the more bacon you cook, the more oil that will splatter on the heating elements. The results are burning bacon grease and lots of smoking.
- Is your air fryer basket or trays/racks clean? If you have leftover oil, tidbits, residue from dinner three days ago then it’s very likely that will cause some smoking. Keep your air fryer cleaned and maintained for optimal cooking for the next dish.
- There’s different methods that people have suggested. One of the most popular bits of advice is to add a little water at the bottom of the basket. If you’ve tried adding water at the bottom and it works, let us know!
- GOOD VENTILATION: Make sure to cook the bacon in a well ventilated area. Turn on your kitchen exhaust fans and open up a few windows. You will get some smoking because that’s the nature of grease cooking at hot temperatures like air fryer bacon.
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What are the Best Air Fryers?
There’s so many on the market now. You just need to research and find the ones that fits your needs, capacity and style. We group the basket style air fryers into 2 main size groups: 3-4 qt range & the 5-6 qt. range. Here’s our favorites:
Cosori 3.7 qt. Digital Air Fryer – “That’s a stylish Air Fryer” was said as we unboxed the Cosori. Beyond being stylish, it has cooked great. The basket is not as tall and wider than most in its size group, which is perfect. You’ll have a lot better results in an air fryer with single layered, spread out foods, then with ones piled high and thick.
The non-stick basket style (non-wire base) & smoothness of the basket tray is also great for clean up.
Ninja 4 qt. Digital Air Fryer – Has a great ceramic coated basket, one of the longest lasting we’ve used. Super powerful fan that will often cook recipes even faster than other air fryers. We initially returned our first one because we thought we wouldn’t like the basket style. After reconsidering, we bought another and are super glad we did. We love it’s basket and just a platform insert. One less bulky thing to wash. This is a great air fryer.
Good Larger Air Fryers
Tiluxury 5.8 qt. Digital Air Fryer – It’s a good larger air fryer capable of cooking for larger families, especially when you need to cook more food. It’s great for cooking bigger batches (ie 4 salmon fillets instead of 2 or 2 lbs of fries instead of 1).We like that this Tiluxury 5.8 qt has the non-stick basket (non-wire base). Makes for less sticking for delicate meals (ie baked fish fillets). And we like the digital interface (easier cleaning).
Gourmia 6 qt. Digital Air Fryer – This is quickly becoming one of our favorite larger basket style air fryers. Great basket size, good controls, cooks nice. Clean up is great. It has become one of our kitchen favorites. We’ll often find it as Costco at a great price too!Try these awesome steak bites in air fryer recipe with mushrooms.
Air Fryer Bacon Recipe
Ingredients
- 2-4 slices bacon depending on your air fryer basket size
Equipment
Instructions
- Lay bacon in single layer in your air fryer basket or tray. Don't let the bacon touch each other.
- Air fry the bacon to your desired crispiness - Here's our general guidelines: For crispy bacon - 380-400°F for about 8-10 minutes, flip, For a less crispy soft bodied bacon - 340-360°F, 10-12 minutes, flip halfway, if needed.If you like the timing and temp for the way the bacon turned out, write it down and save it! If not, make adjustments on your next batch.
11 Comments on “Crispy Air Fryer Bacon”
My air fryer has shelves no basket. Do I just lay bacon on? Won’t I have grease everywhere? Most recipes I see are for baskets. Are the ones with shelves not as good?
Tower or rack style air fryers will definitely get oil splattered everywhere. We’ve seen some folks put foil underneath the bacon to reduce oil splatter and they said this method was helpful. Perforated parchment paper sold as air fryer accessories can be helpful as well. Also, try cooking the bacon on the middle or lower rack, not the top rack. For some rack models, the top rack is very close to the heating element and that can cause smoking quickly.
Do you always use air fryer mode for bacon? I have the InstaPot Vortex Plus.
Hi Susan, some of our air fryers don’t have a bacon mode, so we just cook it by temperature and time range. It’s pretty consistent across all air fryers. But if you have a bacon mode on your air fryer, definitely use it!
I am totally enjoying cooking bacon with the air fryer. Not as messy as with a pan.
We have a rack style and I just did a rack bacon cut in half at 390degrees for eight minutes middle rack did not turn had no smoking and the grease collected in the drip pan nicely. Came out deliciously chewy I think next time I’ll try 10 minutes for crispier end result.
I nailed it with the venison bacon I made at 380degrees for 10 mins it was perfect
That’s awesome Matthew! thanks for sharing.
I was reluctant to use the air fryer for cooking bacon due to several sites saying it produced lots of smoke and a fire hazard. Adding a couple slices of wheat bread in the collection pan did the trick. NO smoke, grease in the collection pan. House doesn’t smell too much like bacon, less stove greasy mess and fire detectors did not go off. Just delicious bacon!
It’s definitely a game changer! We’re obsessed with air fried bacon.
I have borrowed a friend’s air fryer to see if I like it. I LOVE IT. But I have a few questions before I go purchase my own. I like the square basket look of the one pictured in your bacon cooking photos and wonder if you can tell me which one it is. Also, I like to save my bacon grease for future cooking. My friend’s air fryer, which is the only one I have any experience with, has slits cut in it and the grease pours out haphazardly, making itt difficult to salvage the grease. Are all air fryers like this with slits? Does anyone else have suggestions of how to save the grease or which air fryer is easiest to use for bacon grease saving! LOL! Silly I know. I want a square basket, easy clean up and bacon fat saving friendly. Thanks!