Overnight Sous Vide Bacon Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How long can you sous vide bacon? ›

Preheat a sous vide water bath to 145°F (63°C). Place bacon, still in its original plastic packaging, directly in water bath and cook for at least 8 and up to 48 hours. When ready to serve, remove from water bath and proceed immediately to step 2, or chill in refrigerator or freezer for later use (see notes).

The slow, low heat of sous vide cooking renders nearly all of the fat from your bacon strips, leaving behind meaty pieces that can be quickly crisped up in just a minute or two in a pan when you are ready to eat. Although sous vide bacon needs to cook 8 to 12 hours and then chill, that's all hands-off time.

Make sure to let the pan cool slightly before draining the fat. Depending on your desired doneness, regular sliced bacon will be ready after about 14 minutes and thick-cut bacon at 18 minutes. If you cook less than a full sheet of bacon, the strips cook more quickly, which is why we suggest checking after 12 minutes.

Before you pop your bacon strips in the refrigerator, allow them to cool to room temperature. This will limit the formation of condensation after you seal the bacon, which will help it stay as crispy as possible. Once the meat is cool to the touch, place it in an airtight bag.

A steak cooked at a well-done 160°F, for instance, will be soft and shreddable (and dry) after only 8 to 12 hours. For best results, I don't recommend cooking any longer than the maximum recommended time for each cut and temperature range. Should I add butter, oil, or any other liquid or fat to the sous-vide bag? No.

Is it dangerous? So long as you're cooking at above 130°F, there are no real health risks associated with prolonged sous vide cooking.

As with other meats, allow some room between strips, about an inch, when placing bacon in the pan. Crowding creates steam and prevents the bacon from cooking evenly, giving you limp bacon instead of crispy strips. Cook in batches if needed.

Unrendered fat will make meat rubbery

Delishably explains that while the use of low temperatures to cook protein is what makes the sous vide method so great, it can also cause meats to turn out rubbery.

Crispiest: Wright Applewood Thick Cut Bacon

While some folks are fans of thick-cut, hearty bacon, others are looking for rashers that cook up thin and crispy. If the latter sounds more like your preferred bacon style, try Wright Applewood Thick Cut Bacon.

The easiest way to tell is by the color of the pork. Just like with many other types of meat, uncooked bacon will be light pink with white strips of fat. When it's ready to eat, those rosy hues will have darkened to a reddish-brown color, and the fat will morph into a tan or golden shade.

Can you eat slightly undercooked bacon? ›

While some protein options, like steak, may be safe to eat if they're not cooked to well-done, bacon isn't one of them.

Even though bacon has been preserved through the curing process, it has not been cooked. Like other foods you should never eat raw, consuming raw or undercooked meat puts you at risk of foodborne illness from viruses, bacteria or parasites.

Bake your bacon in the oven!

It makes the bacon perfectly crispy every single time. Which is a huge cooking win! The other plus of cooking bacon in the oven is the clean up. When you cook bacon in a pan the grease can splash around and dirty the kitchen.

Wrap cooled bacon in paper towels and place in a food container or plastic bag; refrigerate until ready to serve. Bacon can be baked 3 to 4 days ahead of time. When ready to use, wrap a few bacon slices in a fresh paper towel and re-warm bacon in microwave for approximately 10 seconds just before serving.

You may have heard of the water method, and you may be wondering about its merits. For those not in the know, the editors at Cook's Illustrated recommend adding enough water to cover the bacon in the skillet at the start, which leads to a “crispy and tender bite.”

After the food is pasteurized, if the food is hotter than 130ºF, the spores cannot germinate and multiply, regardless of time. One can hold / tenderize for 24 to 48 hours safely. This is also a major feature of sous vide. If the cooking temperature is 130 to 150ºF, there is an additional benefit.

For example, many chefs recommend that sous vide steak should not be cooked for longer than four hours because the connective tissue begins to break down and the steak can become mushy. If the recipe says to cook something for between one and four hours, it's probably not recommended to cook it for 12.

In the refrigerator, cooked bacon usually lasts for about a week. If you're going to place raw bacon in the freezer and it is still in its original vacuum packed package, then it should last for at least 6 months, and up to a year. This is the longest time period you can store bacon in any form.

You can refrigerate cooked, properly cooled foods in their unopened sous vide bags up to 10 days. If you've opened the bags, your leftovers will have the same shelf life as conventionally cooked leftovers.