Crispy Bacon and Eggs – Best Tips

Crispy bacon and fried eggs – the simple, traditional breakfast cooked to perfection.

Crispy bacon and fried eggs for breakfast or brunch is simple, but done well, makes an elegant and impressive dish to serve for guests and family alike.

Best Crisping Bacon

All bacon can be made crispy but the best bacon for crisping is streaky bacon which is the long fatty tail attached to a small round of meat. The meat itself, while it will crisp, will tend to be hard and chewy when it is crunchy and is much nicer browned without crisping. Streaky bacon is often sold without the meaty rounds. It crisps better because of the fat content, and because it doesn’t have any grain like the meat does, it snaps, just like a potato crisp.

Ingredients

For each person, you will need:

• 3 rashers of streaky bacon
• 1 or 2 eggs (use free range if you can get them – they taste better)
• Salt and pepper to serve

Method

Lay your bacon strips in a single layer in a cold frying pan and turn the heat up to medium. Don’t add any oil or butter – the fat melting from the bacon will provide all the cooking fat you need. As soon as the bacon starts sizzling, turn it down to half way between medium and low. Turn your bacon strips quite often – when you’ve had experience with crisping bacon, you’ll see the best time to turn and how often.

It’s always nice to serve hot food on a warm plate so it doesn’t get cold too quickly. Pop your plates in the oven on medium for a few minutes, or wash them under very hot water.

Bacon Crisping Trick

The great trick with crisping bacon is to cook it slowly enough to melt all the fat out of the strips, without burning the bacon. As the fat melts, the bacon slowly crisps. This process can take up to 15 minutes depending on your frying pan and the heat.

Where the bacon sometimes curls up so that it isn’t actually on the floor of the pan, hold it down to the heat with a fork and it will soon begin to crisp.

Perfect Fried Egg Sunny Side Up

Once your bacon is crisped, push it to one side of your pan where there is less heat. That may mean you have to push one side of the pan off the heat. Where the fat is deepest, break good fresh eggs carefully into it and then put a small lid over them. This keeps the heat in a bit and helps cook the top of your egg without having to turn it sunny side down. Don’t cover your bacon or the steam will make it soggy.

If your egg is cooked and starting to get crunchy on the bottom, then collect the hot bacon fat in a spoon and keep pouring it over the top. It will quickly cook the last bits on top.

Serve Crisp Bacon and Fried Egg

With an egg flip, carefully loosen your egg from the pan and pop it onto the plate. Surround it on three sides with bacon, and serve. Put salt and pepper on the table for people to help themselves since seasoning is always a very individual taste.

Everyone will be back for more. Most people adore crisp bacon but don’t know quite how to do it, so keep it as your special treat.

©Theresa Sjoquist