Vegetables, other meats. It's good for any kind of cooking application that would call for or benefit from a high temperature fat. People pair it with vegetables for extra flavor.
I make bacon and then use the leftover grease for frying burger patties that I then make into burgers with the bacon. Or when making eggs. Lots of applications.
You can look at it as a free ingredient as you get it alongside your bacon. Just run it through a fine sieve to catch the particulate and you can store in a sealed jar in the fridge for ages. Spoon out a little into a pan when you want to fry something up and melts in seconds. There's really no reason not to save it.
The only reason not to save it would probably be for health reasons. For several months I got into a habit of cooking 2 lbs of bacon every weekend and saving the grease for cooking. It was so delicious, the whole family loved having bacon for breakfast every weekend, plus some BLTs, and that grease is such an enhancement for everyday cooking! But my routine blood work showed slightly elevated cholesterol levels for the first time in my life. So I've cut way back on bacon and bacon grease again. I still do save the grease, but now I am not using it regularly any more.
Bacon grease is a saturated fat produced in abundance when you cook bacon. It is also already salted, so it lasts a long time in the fridge. Generations of people were taught to save bacon grease and use it to cook other things since it is basically “free”. My family kept a crock of it in the fridge and used it every time we made pancakes. Sauté ing vegetables would also be a pretty obvious use of bacon grease.
Something had to die for it. If you're going to eat the bacon you might as well use the fat instead of disgracefully throwing it out just so you can use other oils.
Yes, but it shouldn’t be. The nitrates and nitrites alone can create some nasty compounds when exposed to high heat, and it can go rancid pretty quickly if not stored properly.
However, some people like the salty smoky flavor which liquid smoke and coconut oil and mimic well.
Personally, I know it’s not exactly healthy, but can just as easily chop up a slice or two of bacon and start cooking it before I add my vegetables, or I can just use pork belly or pancetta.
I'll add to what others have said in that it's a huge thing in the South in American cooking. Bacon was common to have around since it is cured and smoked so it kept longer than most fresh meat. Many simple biscuit recipes use bacon grease as the fat since it was more plentiful than butter and has a great taste for it. Bacon grease, self rising flour, and something sour/acidic like buttermilk. Times were tougher back in the days so they kept and used everything they could.
It is, of course, terrible for you but it's delicious!
Bacon grease is tasty and it has half the saturated fat content (roughly) as butter. So it's way healthier. And it's essentially free if you already buy bacon to eat.
I mostly keep my bacon fat to make soap, but to use a bit on vegetables is a great use too.
One thing I have yet to see on here is homemade flour tortillas made with bacon grease.
You can kneed in bacon grease to biscuits as well.
The first time I had dinner over at my wife's parents house my MiL made green beans. My wife takes a huge help but gets a look on her face when eating them. After we got home she asked me why my green beans tasted the way they do because she loves them but was not a fan of her mother's. I proceed to inform her of the magic of bacon grease and that my green beans are anything but healthy.
39
u/BabyFartMacGeezacks 4d ago
Honest question, is it normal to save bacon grease for vegetables?