Oven Vs Air Fryer: Which Is Easier For Making Crispy Bacon?

We're a little fixated on the best tips for cooking bacon — bacon is, after all, delicious. Whether we're cooking some strips up for breakfast or crumbling them up for dinner purposes, we can't get enough of this crispy, umami-rich pork. When it comes to the best ways to cook bacon, we know the topic is controversial. Some folks swear by an old-school skillet, while others get adventurous and explore how to cook bacon on the grill. Today, however, we're looking into ease. Bacon, while delicious, can be both messy and finicky to cook. Between an air fryer and the oven, what is the most effortless and effective way to cook bacon? While both have their merits, we gotta hand the crown to the oven for simplicity.

The air fryer is an underrated tool for cooking bacon, and it consistently turns out great results. It's also undeniably quicker than the oven. Where the oven pulls ahead, however, is in terms of both prep and cleanup. No matter how you slice it, you'll have to clean your air fryer racks after cooking bacon, whereas you can conceivably just toss some foil and give a sheet pan a quick clean with the oven method. Plus, the air fryer is smaller, and batch cooking in it is harder. With the oven, you can line a sheet pan in foil and minimize messes. As a bonus, you can cook a ton of bacon in a more hands-off fashion. Both tools are worthy vessels for bacon, but the oven shines in terms of convenience and ease, especially for larger quantities.

We love our air fryers — witness our list of canned foods you should cook in one — but we opt for the oven when we want easy bacon. Chefs agree that you don't get an easier method than baking bacon on a foil-wrapped baking sheet. Some folks will opt for parchment, but the end result is the same ... crispy, uniform bacon that is fairly hands-off and easy on cleanup. If you're a home cook, you might want to hear from other amateurs. Luckily, social media site Reddit is also packed with proponents of oven-cooked bacon.

With baking, "you get perfectly crispy bacon without the mess or the battle scars. If you don't want to spend your morning dodging hot grease like an action hero, just use the oven," one commenter said. On a subreddit dedicated to bacon, another poster claimed that they'd seen the light: "First time cooking bacon in the oven. The results are extremely good. I feel I've wasted 47 years of my life cooking bacon the hard way." That wasn't even close to the only love on Reddit, either. "We enjoy the oven too," said one commenter, claiming "perfect strips of thick bacon is your reward after 15-20 minutes [...] We break this technique out for brunch gatherings ~ it's showstopper fun when guests see a pile of perfect pig planks." Note that ease of prep and cleanup were common themes among social media denizens.