Have you ever thought about cooking bacon in the Instant Pot? Find out why you might want to consider it, especially if you are concerned about grease splattering from cooking bacon!
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So you are thinking of cooking bacon in the Instant Pot.
You probably wouldn't be here otherwise.
Is it a good thing to do? Does the bacon stick to the bottom of the pot? Does it do a good job of cooking the bacon? How many questions am I going to ask?
Let's get to it and show you why you want to keep it as a bacon cooking option.
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⚙️ Why It Works
Why would you want to do bacon in the Instant Pot when they are several other methods at your disposal?
Here are the advantages
- High sides means no splatter. One thing people don't like about cooking bacon is grease splattering on the stove and surrounding area.
- Quicker than the baking it in the oven.
- If you are cooking something in the Instant Pot after like soup that could use the bacon you can just cook the bacon first in the pot. Then make your soup or whatever dish. If you are doing soup add the liquid and scrap the bottom of the pot to get all the chunks stuck to the bottom. This will add flavor. If there is a lot of fat, use a paper towel first to sob some of that up before scraping.
- You can cook bacon anywhere you can plug in your Instant Pot so you aren't stuck at the stove. Especially great if you bring the Instant Pot with you camping.
- The temperature of the Instant Pot seems to be perfect for cooking bacon. It doesn't get too hot to cook it too fast. It's the right amount of heat.
🥓 RECIPE - Better Than Campbell's Bean with Bacon Soup (with Instant Pot instructions)
⏲️ How Long Does It Take to Cook?
It takes about 5-10 minutes per batch depending on the thickness of the bacon and how crispy you want it. Depending on how much bacon you are doing, you may have to work in batches.
💡 Tip - If you want to fit more bacon into the pot, cut it in half. Try to keep your pieces as equal as possible for equal cooking time.
📋 Instructions
Here is how it's done.
Start the bacon in a cold pot. This is important to help the bacon not to stick. You are going to be begin slowly rendering the fat.
Hit the sauté button to start it. The default time is 30 minutes. I don't bother changing it as I am done before that and can just turn it off. Sauté button never said cooking on my model, only preheating, don't worry about that if your model displays that on the screen.
When the bacon starts to curl up and shows some browning on the sides, I flip it over. You should only need to flip the bacon once. If I flip too early, sometimes I do go back to the other side again to finish it.
When your bacon is done, I remove it to a paper towel lined plate. If working in batches immediately add the next bacon. If at any point you feel like there is too much fat in the bottom, you can use tongs and a paper towel to sob some of it up.
When you are all done there will be some brown stuck to the bottom. If you are making a soup afterward, turn the pot off, let it cool for a minute, then add a small amount of liquid. Watch out for steam. Scrap the bottom of the pot with a spatula until all the brown stuff is off the bottom.
I would do this regardless of whether I was using the pot for anything else as it will make cleaning the pot easier.
🧊 Can You Use Frozen Bacon?
What if your bacon is frozen? Do you need to thaw it first? No, you can put it right into the cold pot. It will probably only take a few minutes longer to cook. You need to be sure that the bacon rashers are not frozen together.
🥓 RELATED - How to Cook Bacon on an Electric Griddle
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🍴 More Instant Pot Recipes
Here is some more inspiration for your Instant Pot.
Easy Instant Pot Bacon
Ingredients
- bacon
Instructions
- Place 4-5 rashers of bacon in the bottom of a cold Instant Pot.
- Make sure the bacon does not touch, You can cut it in half to fit better and cook faster.
- Hit the sauté button. Default time should be 30 minutes, no need to change it.
- Allow the fat to slowly start to render from the bacon. Once starting to brown on one side, flip it over once. Cook until as crispy as you like it. It should take between about 10 minutes for the first batch.
- Remove bacon to a paper towel lined plate.
- If working in batches, immediately add the next batch of bacon. It will cook faster since pot is already hot and there is already fat in the pot.
- Hit the cancel button once you are done cooking all the bacon.
- To clean the pot, let it cool for 1 minute, then add a little bit of water to the bottom of the pan. Scrap the bottom with a spatula to remove the brown stuff stuck on the bottom.
- If you are making a soup afterward in the pot, you can just add a little bit of your liquid the soup recipe calls for, scrap the bottom, and then add the rest of your ingredients.
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