This Hack Breaks Every Rule You've Ever Learned About Cooking—But It Actually Works

We've all been taught to pre-heat our pans before starting to cook-- but sometimes you might actually want to start from cold.

Transcript

00:00For the crispiest bacon, you gotta start in a cold pan.

00:03When you're cooking really fatty foods, like bacon,

00:06you want to allow the fat to have time to render out before the meat cooks.

00:10With bacon, you've got all of these threads of fat interspersed throughout the protein.

00:16If you put the bacon into a hot pan, that protein will immediately contract

00:21and shrivel up and cook through faster and potentially burn

00:26before the fat has time to render out.

00:29If you start baking in a cold pan, though, the fat will have time to render out slowly,

00:34leaving the meat perfectly crisp with no big fat pockets.

00:39The cold pan technique is also great for bone-in skin on chicken thighs,

00:44duck breasts, and it even works great when you're sweating vegetables, like onions.