Snoop Dogg’s Trick for Cooking Bacon Is Genius

As a child of the early ’90s, my love for R&B, rap, and hip-hop is just as strong today as it was back then. You’ll find classics from that period on all of my current playlists—and one of my favorite artists of that generation is Snoop Dogg.

Not only is his music incredible, I’ve been just as impressed by what he’s been up to since. From his viral Olympic commentating and narrating Animal Planet to collaborations with the legendary Martha Stewart—I can’t get enough. 

The fact that Snoop has entered the culinary world is almost too much for my foodie heart to handle. His sense of humor and relatability add so much to the food space. Arguably, his most unique contribution to the food community is his unconventional yet super convenient way of cooking bacon.

The Snoop Dogg Way To Cook Bacon

Featured in Jess Damuck’s Salad Freak cookbook, Snoop’s method for frying up bacon inspired her BBQ Chicken Cobb Salad recipe, and it couldn’t be easier.

He simply opens the package of bacon, dumps the whole slab into a large skillet over medium heat, and gives it an occasional stir until it’s crispy, about 15 minutes total. That’s right—no pulling strips of uncooked bacon apart, no greasy hands, no muss, no fuss.

I have seen other culinary icons like Matty Matheson use similar methods. Matheson adds the whole package of bacon to the pan at once; however, he does separate his bacon into strips, adding them to the pan in an artful lattice shape. What results is like Snoop’s method: a big pile of bacon that cooks at once.

Tips for Making Bacon Like Snoop

Before trying Snoop’s method for cooking bacon, I was a little dubious… but boy, was I wrong. It produces crisp, salty, unctuous bacon with curly, crisp edges.

Here are my tips for cooking bacon at home the way Snoop does:

• Start in a cold pan and then cook on medium heat: For this method of cooking bacon, first add the bacon to a cold skillet, and then make sure that your burner is set no higher than medium heat. Otherwise, the bottom of the bacon slab will start to crisp before you can separate the strips, increasing the odds that they’ll tear when you do so.
• Leave your bacon alone at first: While your first inclination may be to start pulling your bacon strips apart with tongs as soon as the slab hits the pan, resist the urge. Instead, cover the pan and leave the bacon alone for a few minutes. This creates steam and renders the bacon fat, making the strips easy to separate.
• Pull your bacon from the pan at the right time for perfect strips: Simply stir the strips every so often until they’re crispy—they’ll come out beautifully curly and a bit rumpled. If you want perfect strips for a BLT or any other dish, pull your bacon from the pan while it’s still pliable and arrange it on a cooling rack (or paper towel-lined plate) in a straight, orderly fashion. As it cools, it will firm up into perfectly crisp strips.