Brown-Sugar-Glazed Bacon

This candied bacon recipe first appeared in 2010, when Eminem blasted from the radio, Avatar blazed across movie screens, tech-savvy people posted heavily filtered food photos to a brand-new app called Instagram—and bacon was trending. Sure, bacon showed up in sandwiches and on burgers, but also on doughnuts, cupcakes, and sundaes. It was the rise of the Bacon Baroque era.

This candied bacon, though, rejects bacon maximalism in every sense except for flavor. It has just two ingredients (bacon and brown sugar, just as the name says), one step, and many glowing reviews. Because it’s made in the oven, you won’t have to clean bacon spatter from the stovetop. And in truth, this recipe is not a throwback, it’s a classic, and it still makes a killer appetizer or brunch dish.

A few ways to make this brown sugar bacon recipe really sing: Use the best bacon available (thick-cut bacon, FTW), watch it carefully toward the end of the cook time (sugar burns quickly!), and don’t try to drain it on paper towels (the paper will stick). Keep it on the sheet-pan rack to cool—that time is essential to avoid sizzling the inside of your mouth. Serve hot, with eggs—or chop it up and sprinkle on a cupcake, if you feel like going back in time.

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