Importance Score: 20 / 100 🔵
Bacon grease, often discarded after enjoying a satisfying breakfast, is a treasure trove of flavorful pork fat. This shimmering liquid gold can be repurposed in countless culinary applications, cocktail creations, and even cookware maintenance tasks around your residence.
The next occasion you extract crispy strips of bacon from the skillet or baking sheet, carefully drain the rendered fat into a practical, heatproof receptacle. This simple step prevents unsightly solidified fat and provides you with the base ingredient for bacon-infused bourbon or savory additions to cornbread, burgers, meatballs, or meatloaf.
Bacon grease imparts a savory, subtly smoky essence that elevates various dishes. A modest amount of this fat infuses an umami boost to your preferred stir-fry or enhances a batch of scrambled eggs.
Retaining leftover bacon grease can significantly enhance your cooking endeavors.
Here are several ways to utilize leftover bacon grease in your kitchen.
Proper Storage of Bacon Grease
While most nonmetal containers risk melting or cracking upon contact with hot bacon grease, certain silicone alternatives provide heat resistance up to 500 degrees F.
Prioritize proper storage for future applications. Although spoilage is rare, refrigeration is advisable due to potential trace amounts of pork.
Preserve it within a lidded metal container, as the potent bacon aroma permeates. For glass or plastic alternatives, permit complete cooling before transferring. A silicone bacon bin with a built-in strainer expedites removal of any solids.
9 Ways to Maximize Leftover Bacon Grease
Enhance Your Next Burger
A small quantity of bacon fat intensifies the flavor profile of ground beef.
For an elevated burger encounter, incorporate a teaspoon of bacon fat into ground beef or turkey before grilling. This transforms a simple burger into an approximation of a bacon cheeseburger. Expect increased sizzling due to the added pork fat, but the enhanced flavor justifies the extra care.
Condition a Cast-Iron Skillet
Combine a dab of bacon grease with the seasoning wax of your choosing to saturate cast-iron skillets with amplified flavor.
Properly seasoning your cast-iron pan is crucial for sustaining a non-stick cooking surface. Consistent maintenance, combined with correct cleaning protocols, establishes a foundational flavor beneficial to culinary applications, such as steaks, burgers, chicken, and hash browns. Season the pan by adding a minuscule quantity of the fat to your preferred cast-iron seasoning wax and proceeding as normally.
Infuse Smoky Flavor into Stir-Fries
Elevate your next stir-fry by adding a teaspoon of bacon fat.
Next time you’re cooking up a stir-fry, incorporate a teaspoon of bacon grease to heighten its taste profile. Exercise restraint to preclude excessive greasiness or overwhelming bacon influence.
Enrich Cornbread or Cookies
A dash of leftover bacon grease yields notable enhancements to any cornbread recipe.
Bacon and cornbread unite as a compelling culinary pairing. Ameliorate any dryness issues by integrating a teaspoon of bacon fat alongside butter; the resulting bread exhibits both amplified moisture and a hint of bacon undertones.
Introduce bacon grease into chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. Given bacon‘s compatibility with maple, chocolate, or vanilla, experimentation with different recipes delivers surprising, delightful results.
Craft Bacon-Washed Bourbon
Introduce bacon fat to bourbon, agitate, then freeze. Removing the solidified fat leaves a remarkable libation.
Fat-washing liquor is quite straightforward: introduce one or two ounces of liquified bacon fat to a bottle of bourbon. Agitate well and refrigerate or freeze for several days. Sieving removed solidified fat yields a smoky, complex spirit suitable for neat sipping or as the base for distinctive cocktails.
Enhance Scrambled Eggs
Bacon and eggs continue to perform quite amicably.
The fusion of bacon and eggs demonstrates an established culinary pairing. For enhanced scrambled eggs, incorporate a trace quantity of bacon grease with butter into the pan before introducing stirred eggs and softly mixing them.
Enhance Searing of Steaks or Chicken
Add bacon fat to cooking oil when frying meat for intensified flavor.
Sautéing solely in bacon grease lacks viability, yet mixing it with olive, flaxseed, or avocado oil yields robustly flavored results.
Make Bacon Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts
Mix Brussels sprouts with bacon grease, olive oil, and then cook in the air fryer to create a tasty dish.
Brussels sprouts, given their inherent density, perform favorably within air fryers. Tossing sprouts briefly in bacon grease and then placing them for 20 minutes is advantageous. The enhanced taste may well obscure their vegetable origin.
Craft Bacon Fat Salad Dressing
Add judicious quantities of bacon fat into salad dressings.
Many salad dressings presuppose the addition of an oil component, and the introduction of bacon grease offers a rich undertone. Avoid exclusive use to prevent flavor dominance; incorporate a smaller quantity alongside olive oil in favored vinaigrette recipes.
Prohibited Uses for Leftover Bacon Grease
Avoid Draining It
Emptying bacon grease down drains leads to rapid clogging.
Even one instance of pouring bacon grease into the kitchen sink precipitates plumbing calamities. The grease solidifies upon cooling, leading to extensive blockages.
Do Not Compost
Bacon grease isn’t a viable material for compost.
Bacon grease and overly oily residuals resist composting. Both standard heaps and electric models rebuff such additions.
Prevent Hot Disposal in Trash
Hot grease undermines the fortitude of plastic trash bags.
Heated grease softens trash bags, leading to ruptures. Allow cooling within a metal vessel before discarding.