… aaaaand go! Q inspired partially by the pan of freshly cooled bacon fat sitting on my stove, and partially by the current thread about “Saving soap slivers!” and other thrifty measures, where several posts mention reusing bacon fat.
It seems like almost as many Dopers expressed surprise at the bacon-saving crowd as those who have a jar/can of pig goo(dness) in the fridge. Let’s edumakate them!
In purple hull peas. In cornbread. Which means it’s an ingredient. To fry something in bacon grease is different altogether. Eggs of course. Pancakes, maybe. There is a little market I frequent that makes their own sausage. My favorite one is ‘bacon sausage’. It’s just what you think it is. It’s a wonder of foodstuffs. Pancakes in the grease from that sausage are great. Country fried potatoes are great fried in bacon grease.
French toast.
Hands down, it’s chicken fried steak, then you use the last of the bacon grease to make the cream gravy to go over the top of it. White trash heaven on a plate, mang.
Anything. Chicken fillets, roast spuds/pumpkin/brussel sprouts. Peas, noodles, just about ANYTHING tastes better cooked in bacon fat!
And every day I thank the heavenly-being that put me in the Xtian queue and not the Jewish or Islamic one. 
If Christianity has anything going for it, it’s pig.
Whoo. Pig!!
Sliced leeks and fresh corn sliced right off the cob. Of course, you need to put the actual bacon in there too. Finish with a half teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.
More bacon.
To fry something in bacon grease is different.
But seriously folks, add flour, milk, some of the bacon, and pepper for killer gravy.
My mother used to make this wonderful tomato gravy, which was served over biscuits for breakfast. When she visited I asked her to make it, and then tell me how to make it. Her first question was, “Where is your drippings can?”
Oh, I didn’t have one.
I quickly fried up some bacon, but I missed some of the details of the delectable tomato gravy. I’m pretty sure it required barely ripe tomatoes. I will never have this meal again. I’ve never had anything else remotely like it.
Okay, fake edit, I decided to google it. I’ve done that before with no luck. But this time I think I found it. My mother did not use tomato juice or tomato paste, but she did use onions. I think for the liquid she might have just poured in coffee.
Somewhere in this recipe it said it was good with peach cobbler. I certainly hope not poured directly on the peach cobbler. That is just weird.
Grilled Cheese Sandwich—better than butter. Split on the diagonal and serve with Campbell’s Tomato Soup and a Twinkie (I haven’t tried frying a Twinkie in bacon grease yet, but it sounds pretty good).
Philly Cheese-steak: Grill the inside of a split hoagie roll (not completely split, keep a hinge on one side) in bacon grease till almost black. Remove the roll, then add diced onions, then shaved beef (or, if you’re strapped for cash as I am, you can slice up your old leather shoes), then a sprinkle of Worcestershire sauce and garlic salt, then Cheez Whiz (yeah, I’m Old School with my cheese-steaks, pal; no fancy-schmancy cheese will ever tarnish the inner-workings of one of my cheese-steaks), then place the opened roll back on top of this symphony of gastronomical goodness and press down to soak up some drippings. Scoop up en masse, plate, squirt on some ketchup, salt, pepper and Texas Pete hot sauce to your liking (don’t even think about adding mushrooms, bell pepper or anything else—doing so will necessitate you being prosecuted and likely sentenced to being removed from the human gene pool).
Grilling your cheese-steak roll and fillings in bacon grease not only imparts a flavorful piggy tone to the cow meat (BTW, this equation is more important than E=mc²: Bacon + Beef = Tasty²), but also adds a wonderful crunch when eating the sandwich. Sometimes I keep the strips of bacon in the pan and chop it up with the shaved beef, but usually I remove and nibble on the strips while I wait for the onions to caramelize and the beef to brown (hey, cooking is hard work, you need to snack for energy while doing so!).
Cracklin’ Cornbread using bacon drippings instead of butter is better than sex … well, it’s better than the sex I’ve had for a couple decades (which is pretty close to none).
Greens (mustard, turnip, collards) are good sauteed in bacon grease before pressure cooking with a smoked ham-hock. (Please don’t tell my vegan daughters I do this, they think greens naturally taste like bacon) … I hide the bacon and ham-hock and share it with our dog and cat when the girls aren’t looking ( … Tibby the cat and Daisy the dog are cool with this arrangement).
Potatoes; they soak up all the bacon-y goodness AND add a nice carb bomb from the potato itself.
Not “cooked in” but worth mentioning: my Dad makes bread using bacon fat instead of butter or oil. It’s not the fancy artisan loaves that are popular right now. It’s plain ol’ American White Bread from the Betty Crocker cookbook. And it’s delicious, in part from the bacon fat.
Liver and onions.
Similarly, trinity sweated down in bacon grease is the perfect starter for red beans. Really, it works well with any kind of bean you care to prepare.
Gravy is probably the main use of our leftover bacon grease.
We do what **bordelond **suggests when we make beans/blackeyed peas too.
I don’t eat pork so it’d be unusual for me to have any real bacon grease. But if I did I’d pour a little over my dogs dry dog food. He absolutely loves shit like that.
Or at least he did until he keeled over!
Can’t believe it took 12 posts for potatoes to appear. Hash browns or home fries, either one. We also fry our French toast in a combination of bacon fat and butter.
My mother once spent several weeks searching for a “special recipe” for ginger snap cookies. She finally got it from my dad’s aunt: “I just use the recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook, but instead of shortening, I use bacon grease.”
Pancakes for me. Bacon grease always gives them perfectly crisp, lacy edges and hint of salt and smoke that goes perfectly with a little splash of real syrup.
Hamburgers -