My grandmother used it in place of butter or shortening to make cookies.
During the 2nd installment cooking fats were a big deal, because everything was rationed, used cooking grease was collected and sold back to grocers, who paid the equivalent of a couple bucks a pound. It was needed to make explosives for the militaries.
Personally, I’ve never quite gotten the concept of saving bacon grease. If I’m making something with bacon, then I’m using the grease right then and there, because that’s the reason for making bacon in the first place.
I use it mostly the same way I use lard: to fry the onions in that start off about half the recipes I make. But it depends on what I’m in the mood for. Right now, I’m out of bacon grease and all I have is lard and chicken schmaltz in the fridge. (ETA: Actually, just checked and this is wrong. It’s schmaltz I’m out of; I have bacon fat.) All are delicious for any type of stewy application. I pretty much insist my Central/Eastern European arsenal of dishes to be made on an animal fat of some type.
I also like it spread on rye bread with some thinly sliced raw onions and salt and pepper on top as a snack.
If you’re frying up a package of bacon for breakfast, you end up using all that fat that renders? I’m usually left with a huge pool. I can’t imagine consuming all of it or using it all in the other breakfast items.
I don’t usually make bacon for breakfast, and I certainly don’t make a whole package at once (I’m single). But, for instance, when I make BLTs, I fry up the bread to sop the grease, instead of toasting it. And my chili recipe starts with about a half a pound of bacon, all of which (protein, grease, and connective tissue) stays in the vat.
Sure, but you seemed a little unclear that there would be such a thing as leftover bacon grease. Frying up bacon for a family is one common way people would end up with a lot of bacon grease. Or if you’re just frying up the bacon for the bits to sprinkle over a salad or something. There’s plenty of times one is frying bacon for the meat and not for the fat.
Then you mix in some vinegar, and you’ve got your dressing, too.
I don’t cook enough bacon to keep bacon grease around. But I save fat from my annual roast goose and I currently have some duck fat. Goose fat keeps for a year or two in the fridge, I’d expect the same of bacon fat.
I use the goose fat to fry potatoes, cook popcorn, and saute vegetables. It’s delicious for all those. I tried using duck fat in corn muffins, and didn’t love it, but I think bacon fat would be quite nice. Bacon fat might be overpowering for popcorn… Bacon fat is awesome for fried eggs.
Any recipe that calls for fat or oil, that you think might taste good with some bacon crumbled into it, will be good with bacon fat.
Doesn’t seem to, it works fine. To be clear it’s used to pop the corn. Somebody mentioned drizzling it on popped corn, haven’t tried that.
Bacon fat usually ends up with impurities in it, unlike rendered goose fat or duck fat that you buy at the store, so it will likely develop mold over time. I used to store mine in the freezer in a plastic container and just chip out whatever I needed for cooking, but nowadays just fry up some bacon and use the resulting fat for whatever I’m needing it for.
My mom used to put the bacon drippings in a coffee can (after transferring the Maxwell House to the canister), for later cooking. One morning she messed up and put the bacon grease in the percolator instead of the coffee. Dad wouldn’t have noticed, except his toast kept sliding down this throat before he got a chance to chew it.
Okay that was a joke I stole from an Alan King book (Help! I’m A Prisoner in a Chinese Bakery!, I think). My serious recollection is that I vaguely recall mom using the bacon grease as the oil component of the batter when she made pancakes.
Great answers so far. Thanks!
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A tablespoon or so in stovetop white gravy kicks it up nicely.
While I would not advocate pouring bacon fat over your breakfast cereal every day, the lines about “hardening your arteries” really have no merit these days and have been generally proven to be untrue for the majority of people. (I’m not talking about people who have body chemistry that makes handling fat difficult – like my uncle who is on three statin meds and lives on the Seventh Day Adventist Diet – I’m talking about Joe and Jane Average here.)
Fat phobia keeps people from a lot of nice living and good eating.
“All things in moderation” is not a bad idea and if you use common sense you can eat a varied diet with occasional bits of excess and no harm done. There has been a tremendous amount of hysteria around food and the demonization of food substances has led to no real health advances that I can see but has caused a whole lot of misery. Choking down something you don’t like may give you nutrients but no joy.
Bacon fat is a staple of Southern cooking and I grew up with the coffee can of fat on the stove, so I don’t see it as anything else but a delicious part of good food. Strain the bacon fat as you take it out of the pan; it’s cleaner and tastes better and lasts longer, not that it stays around here long in any event. I don’t keep a can on the stove; we don’t cook bacon every day and use what we generate usually the same day.
Again, don’t use it every day, don’t eat it at every meal, but when appropriate it’s just the right thing. This evening my dinner will be a big wilted salad; bacon fat in the vinaigrette, crumbled bacon on top. (Romaine lettuce, thinly sliced red onion, hard boiled eggs; dressing is bacon grease, vinegar, touch of brown sugar, a bit of mustard, combine in skillet, pour hot dressing over salad, YUM. Might have a pork medallion on the side.) I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t know how good this is.
“Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death!”
Cook greens in it. Any greens, though spinach is best.
Cut Brussels sprouts in half, cut garlic in thin slivers. Fry in bacon grease with some pepper. Yummy!
Never thought of popcorn. I dont think I’d do it
as I recall, the depression was in the 30’s, but I could be wrong, I wasnt there and I always will admit if I am wrong :eek:
I love bacon! Not had any in months. I’d like to avoid it the rest of my life. I cant eat anything in moderation (*if it tastes good, I keep eating!) so I have to just go cold turkey on these things but I know I’ll have more, before long
Otherwise, bacon grease can be saved for eternity. Keep in tight container though
I make baked beans, I fry the onions in a little bit of the bacon grease. Any leftover bacon, goes in the beans of course.
When I do buy bacon I try to break it into three packages. I’ve tried four but bacon tastes good–(see* above)
oh and incidentally I should save the grease but I dont.
Oh. Baked beans. Now I am definitely considering that in a slow cooker for next weekend. With bacon!
Perogies are probably good fried in bacon grease, I assume.
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As mentioned upthread, coffee cans work great for storing grease. Mom had a rotation…one on the stove at room temp, one in the fridge, and one in the freezer.
Just remember what they are or mark the containers though. For some reason one time Mom stored some leftover frosting in a coffee can in the fridge and I picked the wrong can to get a huge fingerful out of. Boy was I surprised.