For Safety Reasons, You Should Think Twice Before Cooking Bacon In The Air Fryer

Air fryers have become a staple in modern kitchens for their enticing promise of crispy, oil-free versions of our favorite fried foods with the touch of a button. This makes bacon — the poster child of greasy but super-indulging food — the prime candidate for the air-fried treatment. Now, air-frying bacon is entirely doable, and you'll find no shortage of recipes out there, but that doesn't mean you should. The biggest reason bacon belongs on the list of foods you should never cook in the air fryer is this: you'll run the risk of food poisoning when you do.

The issue stems from the fat marbling in each strip of bacon that makes them so flavorful in the first place. When you heat the bacon up, the fat renders and collects at the bottom of the basket. All of the accumulated grease will begin to simmer, burn, and then smoke as they heat in the hot, circulating air. Besides filling your air fryer with smoke and an acrid smell, it'll give you a hard time cooking the bacon evenly, too. The side sitting in the hot grease can become burnt while the top remains undercooked. As with any food, unevenly cooked bacon doesn't bode well for food safety — the convenience just isn't worth the risk.

Not convinced yet? There are more problems with air-fried bacon than undercooked rashers or a smoky machine.

Another thing that home cooks may overlook when they cook bacon in the air fryer is cross-contamination. The slimy "juice" on raw bacon is the home of a long list of harmful bacteria like Salmonella. Usually, they'd be destroyed during cooking. However, if you recall how air fryers can leave your bacon a bit undercooked, then you'll see that there's a small chance that some of the bacteria may survive. Let's say you tested out an air-fried bacon recipe online, but the last batch wasn't cooked all the way through. Just take them out and throw them away, right? Well, the bacteria will still linger in the frying basket. Whatever food you put into the unclean basket next will be contaminated and could make you ill.

The obvious solution here is to clean your air fryer after every use (which we recommend doing as a general practice anyway.) But if laboring over the air fryer sounds like too much effort for the early morning, put your air fryer away and use the oven to bake your bacon instead. A mess-and-smoke-free cooking experience aside, so long that you do it right, you'll have beautiful rashers of crispy, evenly-cooked bacon every single time!