The Rolling Trick That Prevents Raw Bacon From Sticking Together

Bacon has become a celebrity in the meat world — with its beautiful combination of crispy edges and fatty ridges, it's a natural addition to almost any dish. While there's nothing quite as grand as the smell of bacon sizzling on the stove, there is equally nothing as annoying as prying the slices of raw bacon apart in the package.

Having your packaged raw bacon stick together is a universal kitchen frustration, but rest assured, there's a hack for that! The remedy for this is simple: Roll your bacon package into a tube and then unroll it. This loosens up the bacon from the package, as well as the surrounding strips, making them easy to peel away from one another and ready to use in any recipe. You know a hack is tried and true when it's been tested on TikTok and approved by cooking sources, so give this a try next time you bring home the bacon.

The rolling hack is not only effective but efficient in helping you unpack your bacon by forcing the strips to un-cling from one another and roll with you. This means your individual pieces remain intact, and your slices don't emerge in one big blob. Start by cutting your package open at one end so that air can escape — note that you'll be rolling towards the open end. Then, starting with the closed end, roll your bacon pack up so it forms a yule log of bacon and wrapping and give it a good press to release any tension. After you flatten the roll back out, remove the wrapping and see for yourself how easily the bacon strips pull away from each other!

As simple as it seems, there are a few things to keep in mind with this hack. First, only use raw refrigerated bacon. You can thaw a once-frozen pack, but rolling up your bacon straight out of the freezer will cause it to break and the hack won't work.

Another thing to note is that this works primarily with raw bacon, as pre-cooked bacon shouldn't be as sticky. Dealing with raw bacon requires extra safety precautions, including washing your hands after touching the raw meat and cleaning off any surfaces that the raw meat came into contact with. Unnatural surfaces such as marble countertops or plastic cutting boards are ideal for this since the bacteria from the raw meat won't seep in.

Not only does this hack make your life easier when removing raw bacon from its packaging, but it also sets you up for success while you're cooking. If you're serving bacon by itself and planning to cook it in a skillet, ensuring each piece separates from the packaging is the key to even cooking. If your slices stick together, you may end up with raw portions that didn't make contact with enough heat while other ends could be burnt from too much stove time. Rolling out your bacon guarantees all slices will peel away nicely and cook equally — not to mention it's just one of the few bacon hacks that you need to know. 

Rolling your bacon out before cooking is also great if you need to manipulate the slices ahead of time. Whether you're making bacon-wrapped bratwurst and need to be able to properly curl each strip, or you're trying out maple braised bacon and need to coat the slices before cooking, you'll need to have access to each strip individually. This will be no problem at all thanks to the rolling trick that kept your raw bacon from sticking to itself and the packaging.