I Found the Fastest, Cleanest Way to Make Bacon (It's Not the Stove, Oven or Microwave)

For easy, crispy bacon, it's time to ditch the grease-splattered stovetop struggle. While making pork strips in a frying pan works well, the relentless popping and rogue grease droplets leave their mark on your skin, stove and kitchen walls.

I was ready for a better way.

In search of the best, cleanest method for Sunday brunch bacon or a BLT, I tested several approaches -- stovetop, oven and air fryer. Turns out I'd been doing it wrong all along.

Here's how my three bacon-making tests went and how I'm making it from now on.

Frying pan

Cooking time : 10 minutes

: 10 minutes Hassle : 8/10

: 8/10 How much bacon: 7-8 strips

I grew up on pan-fried bacon but my test revealed there's a better way. Mike Mackinven/Getty Images

This is the way I grew up cooking bacon and it's perfectly fine. There isn't much skill required to fry bacon in a pan, though just about every batch I've ever made leaves a healthy splatter over the stove. In more unfortunate instances, that infernal grease lands directly on my skin or clothes, presenting two distinct but equally aggravating problems.

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