Do you save bacon fat?

We fry a lot of bacon and the grease is discarded. Someone told me that they save the bacon fat in jar -store it in the fridge- and spoon as needed when pan frying meats, veggies and what not. Anyone do this?

I save it, but we don't eat that much bacon - maybe once/month. I would say primary purpose would be for refried beans. I fry sausages in it. Maybe brown meat for a stew or something....

not since I started to save duck fat.

Sometimes, esp if we cook enough bacon to have a decent amount of fat.

Always.

Hi,

When I have it, I keep it in a jar in the refrigerator.

Regards,

I don't cook enough bacon to have substantial quantities of fat to save. However, having animal fat on hand is always a good thing. I make David Chang's pork belly, and that gives off a ton of fat that i can use for months.

I save it. It's a good, flavorful fat for a lot of things.

OMG - I'll take your fat! Crimeny!

HI,

Other fats you can recycle:

I made corned beef hash recently. Instead of starting with oil or butter, I trimmed off the fat and melted it in the pan before I commenced making hash.

The other night, I made a recipe my Mom saw in the newspaper. It called for skinless chicken pieces. I stripped off the skin, then made cracklings. The rendered fat was used to fry the now coated chicken, before finishing it off in the oven. If the chicken fat was not recycled into this recipe, I might have used this fat for making chopped chicken livers.

Regards,

i usually toss in some ap flour to make a roux with the leftover bacon fat. I freeze it and break off chunks or use the whole thing later.

Ron

When I make bacon which is about once a month I try to use the fat to add flavor to some thing I am making such as pasta. I usually don't save it but use it on the spot. I made a delicious pasta, rigatoni with fresh mushrooms, asparagas and bacon with light cream sauce. I used the bacon drippings to toss the pasta in before I added the cream. Delicious.

My grandmother used to keep bacon fat in a coffee can by the stove -- as in, never refrigerated. I would not recommend this, but she cooked with it regularly and no one in our family ever got sick from her cooking (which we ate regularly). My kids love bacon, so we cook it weekly, and I keep bacon fat (run from the pan through a fine mesh strainer) in a tupperware in the fridge. I periodically melt it down and give it a stir so that the old and the new are more mixed and it is not just the newest stuff on top that is getting used. I am sure there is a right/safe answer for how long it keeps, but I tend to keep it a really long time, to no observed ill effects. I typically have a cup to a cup-and-a-half on hand at any given time, but usually clean out the container with some massive use and start over at least once a year.

I use it in lieu of oil/butter in most cajun/creole cookery when sauteeing the trinity, add it to bean dishes (red beans, white beans, black beans, black-eyed peas), cook mirepoix for other dishes in it, use it in salad dressings, add a little to frying oil when pan-frying, use it to pan roast potatoes, add to finish green beans, greens and other vegetables, fry eggs in it, etc. There are myriad uses and very few savory things that bacon fat will not enhance. And it does not take a ton to impart a nice flavor.

Times are changing, at least in my family. My Mom & I were just talking about how she used to always have a coffee can of bacon fat and a bottle of frying oil (which was reused) in the kitchen. The frying oil would get strained periodically.

Today, neither of us have bacon fat or frying oil in the house. If I have bacon fat, it's usually because I'm frying some bacon or pancetta for the sole purpose of rendering the fat and using immediately.

I save bacon fat in a small Dijon mustard jar that lives on my fridge door shelf. It takes up next to no room and keeps forever as far as I can tell. Bacon fat is a must-have for braised red cabbage. I use it also for frying eggs, making wilted spinach salad dressing, and for other frying where bacon's smoky and salty flavors are desirable. Save it and you'll find plenty of uses.

Not only bacon fat, but also the grease from pan-fried Italian sausage, co-mingled in the same containter kept in the fridge - a wonderful combination.

When I was a kid, I had a friend whose parents saved bacon fat for making popcorn. At the time, I thought it was the result of some depression era trailer park frugality. Now I recognize it as a stroke of contemporary culinary genius. How times change.

I do both of the above. And yes...

Always in a jar next in the Fridge next to the precious duck fat

On the rare occasions when I make bacon in the house, I have been known to save the bacon fat for no more than a day and cook potatoes in it.

Suzy

Oh, heck yes!

Nothing better than potatoes fried in fat rendered from quality dry-cured bacon...a twist of the salt grinder, another of the pepper mill...I'm salivating