This is either the best kitchen tip ever or proof that H and I are certifiably insane… You know how bacon is delicious and you want to have it on hand? And you know how you don’t want to eat a pound of bacon every week? And you know how bacon generally comes in one pound packages with overlapping slices that freeze up into a giant block that cannot be quickly and easily thawed?
I think we may have solved this problem.
Take a baking sheet (or you may need two (or you may need to eat some of the bacon before you freeze it)) and lay a sheet of plastic wrap over it. Lay your slices of bacon side by side (not overlapping!) on the plastic wrap. Lay another sheet of plastic wrap over the bacon, smoothing it out so there’s no exposed meat. Put the baking sheet in the freezer.
Of course, you don’t want a giant baking sheet of bacon in your freezer indefinitely. Once the bacon is frozen (overnight, probably), remove it from the freezer. Horizontally roll up the bacon, one strip at a time to form a cylinder of delicious frozen bacon (this may require some repositioning of the bacon in order to introduce adequate slack in the plastic. Or else you can take this into account pre-freezing, if you’ve got extra baking sheets and room in the freezer). Put the wrapped-up bacon in a gallon freezer bag.
Now, any quantity of bacon from one strip up to a full pound can be extracted from the freezer and ready to cook in less than a minute. Enjoy.
[UPDATE] Welcome Diggers. A few notes:
- I have not filed for a patent on this technique. No doubt it has been done before.
- Wax paper is a good idea. With wax paper, you could probably roll up the bacon before you freeze it, and it wouldn’t glump together.
- My camera is broken (damn modern world). The drawings are better anyway.
Thanks to H for her precise rendering of rolled-up plastic wrap.
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