Air Fryer Crispy Turkey Bacon

Weight Watchers Recipe of the Day: Air Fryer Turkey Bacon

I was at CostCo recently and spontaneously picked up this NuWave Air Fryer (affiliate link) because it was on sale. I have been wanting to try one for a while now, but wasn’t sure if it would really be worth it.

I already have so many kitchen gadgets and slow cookers and don’t really have the room for one more countertop appliance. But I guess my curiosity won out in the end 😉

I haven’t really made much yet other than frozen sweet potato fries which turned out excellent. While it does take a little getting used to, I am getting much more comfortable now with my air fryer cooking experiments.

Trying to figure out what would cook well in the air fryer, I came up with bacon.

Specifically turkey bacon. Uncured turkey bacon. Yum!!

I love bacon…who doesn’t… But never really cared for cooking it.

And whenever I would fry it up on the stovetop, it would make a mess splattering all over and and kind of stink up the whole kitchen for a day or two.

I know bacon can be baked too, but here in Phoenix I don’t always like to turn on the oven—even this time of year it can be really warm outside and turning on the oven just makes the house that much warmer.

Believe it or not we’re just getting to the time of year when we don’t need to run air conditioners all the time!

So after a bit of “Googling” to see what I was getting myself in for, I broke out my almost brand new air fryer and got to work.

The first thing I realized was that the turkey bacon strips were too long, so I decided to cut them in half. And they fit perfectly in the little air fryer basket.

The downside was that I only cooked 2 full slices at a time. I could have probably fit in a few more pieces, but I really was going for crispy, crunchy bacon.

For me, one big issue with the air fryer is its size.

It’s kind of a large machine, but you really can’t fit too much food in it because you want to make sure there is enough room in-and-around the food for the air to flow, so everything cooks and crisps nicely.

I mean that’s why we’re air frying right – we want the crunch, but want to stay relatively healthy and keep our deep fried foods to a minimum.

Because of it’s size, I personally think air fryers work well when cooking for one or two, but I wouldn’t want to try and feed a family with it.

If you’re cooking for a larger family and found a way to make your air fryer work, please let us know how in the comments below!

They do make larger air fryers, like this Nuwave Brio 10 Quart Digital Air Fryer (affiliate link), but they can get pricey and I’m sure it will take up a lot of space on the counter.

Recipe Notes

I really happy with these results though. The bacon was still a little chewy, yet nice and crispy, crunchy on the outside.

I ended up doing three rounds of cooking to prepare the entire package. Each round was 10 minutes total and best practices for air fryers are stopping halfway through and giving things a shake (or in this case turning them over).

Not too bad considering I could do other things while the bacon was cooking, I just had to remember to check it around the 5 minute mark.

I used Trader Joe’s Uncured Turkey Bacon and the simple list of package ingredients include:

• Turkey Thighs
• Water
• Sea Salt
• Raw Sugar
• Celery Powder
• Paprika
• Onion Powder
• Spice

Since this bacon is uncured, it doesn’t have any artificial anything—including nitrates—and you can actually understand (and pronounce) all the ingredients.

How Many Calories and WW Points in Crispy Air Fryer Turkey Bacon?

Each 1 slice serving of this turkey bacon has just 30 calories.

To see your WW Points for this recipe, track it in the WW App!
(You must be logged into WW on a smartphone or tablet.)

1 SmartPoints (Green plan)
1 SmartPoints (Blue plan)
1 SmartPoints (Purple plan)
1 PointsPlus (Old plan)

If you like this easy air fryer turkey bacon, be sure to check out my other Weight Watchers friendly recipes including: Slow Cooker BBQ Green Beans with Bacon, Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup with Bacon and Creamy Slow Cooker Bacon Ranch Chicken Pasta

If you’ve made this Air Fryer Turkey Bacon, please give the recipe a star rating below and leave a comment letting me know how you liked it. And stay in touch on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the latest updates.

Kitchen tools I used to make this turkey bacon: NuWave Air Fryer

Watch how to cook bacon in a Large Capacity Air Fryer (affiliate link)

More Easy Recipes with Bacon Made Lighter

• One Skillet Chicken with Bacon & Green Beans (SkinnyTaste)
• 7 Skinny BLT Recipes (Simple-Nourished-Living)
• Bacon Cheeseburger Chili (HungryGirl)
• Garlic Bacon & Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast (DrizzleMeSkinny)
• Barbecue Chicken Bacon Wraps (EmilyBites)