Bacon Grease

[CastingFool]

We do cook bacon all that often, but ido save the bacon grease, and use it accordingly. What we buy is pork fat and render it into lard. Use it just about every day.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I remember when almost everyone had a tin can at the back of their stove to save bacon grease. It was one of the best fats you could cook with. It added good taste and you get it much hotter without it smoking when frying. You could add it to things like biscuits to enhance their taste.

I’ve started using it again. I’ve come across a lot of new studies that say high cholesterol isn’t as bad as it’s been made out to be. I’m not posting to talk about that, but if it interests you, Google it. I’m wondering if there are others who use bacon grease today. I’m glad that I’ve gone back to bacon grease as well as other natural animal fats.

My understanding is that simple carbs have more to do with high blood cholesterol numbers, than natural animal fats. I do wonder about processed fats, like hydrogenated fats...I tend to avoid those, just like other food ingredients that are seemingly over processed (like HFCS).

[Electrod47]

I'm one with a bacon grease pot on the back of our stove since "forever". Keep it for flavoring and some frying. The wife and I were in the little market in a small Mississippi town yesterday getting a few items. They had fancy quart tubs of "Bacon Grease" for sale. We looked at each other. If your going to buy bacon grease and not eat bacon??????. Amazing

[swamp]

I also render my own lard. Besides using them for cooking, they both make good soap.

[WILCO]

I filter mine thru a paper towel to store.

I put mine through a coffee filter.

[TD1886]

My understanding is that simple carbs have more to do with high blood cholesterol numbers, than natural animal fats. I do wonder about processed fats, like hydrogenated fats...I tend to avoid those, just like other food ingredients that are seemingly over processed (like HFCS).

Jon from what I've studied from professional cholesterol doctors is that bacon or the grease doesn' t have any of the bad fats in it to cause cholesteral nor do eggs. Remember when they said decades ago eating bacon and eggs was super bad for you?

[TD1886]

Another dish down south is scalded lettuce and of course with bacon grease!!

[toallmy]

Although not exactly bacon grease , I grew up with fried fat back grease in the lard can on the stove .

[BLAHUT]

Yes, bacon is extra valuable because it is a two part product. You get to eat the meat and save the grease for later. I use a lot of the grease for cooking my venison since it's so dry by itself. I see you can even buy bacon grease at Lowe's and Tractor Supply in the grilling supplies now. It is quite expensive to buy that way.

One can buy lard at Walmart in the cooler section, by the pound..

[Winger Ed.]

Another dish down south is scalded lettuce and of course with bacon grease!!

In the South, bacon grease is its own food group, part of that diet pyramid thing, and required with every meal.

Lard is still around too. Our local grocery store sells it in one pound blocks in the baking/cooking oil section.
I use it with peanut butter and bird seed to make blocks for the patio bird feeder.
We have two families of 2 different kinds of wood peckers that love it.

[Daver7]

Funny, A boolit casting forum and the most active post of the day is about cooking with bacon fat.
Just like mom I keep bacon grease. I use to keep it on the stove top then back in my bachelor days went to use some and noticed mouse had drowned in the can, Im sure he died happy. Started keeping it in the fridge. Hadn't thought about filtering it I've always liked the little pieces of bacon in what I was cooking. Some time I'll cut up a couple slices of bacon, smaller pieces work best, and throw them in the whirly pop, Bacon cooks while the corn is popping.

[Winger Ed.]

I've always liked the little pieces of bacon in what I was cooking.

When making black (pepper) gravy, you put all of them in with the bacon grease you use when the recipe calls for butter.
However; this gravy is only for home made biscuits at breakfast.

[Electrod47]

When making black (pepper) gravy, you put all of them in with the bacon grease you use when the recipe calls for butter.
However; this gravy is only for home made biscuits at breakfast.

Your making me miss my momma something fierce. she always served sliced cantalope on the side in the summer.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I filter my bacon grease too, if you loose it in the back of the fridge, it won't get moldy like it does when it has the meat crumbs in it. I quit using veg oil for frying, since my daughter gave me a quart of Amish made lard she buys, it's mild and snow white, not like the saturated Morrell's lard that too me smells like a hog barn.

[huntinlever]

Good book, The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Surpr.../dp/1451624425

Punches a hole in the accepted wisdom put out by the USDA during the 60's and 70's, based on the flawed and possibly corrupt "research" of the originating physician for the Food Pyramid paradigm. Years ago, a physician friend told me, dietary cholesterol is meaningless. Additional scientific research since then has only confirmed that there is no correlation between dietary and blood cholesterol. Eat them eggs and bacon, and keep moving.

Everything is better with bacon. One upping it, is rendered duck fat. As a chef, we used duck a lot, got them in whole, rendered gallons of it and used it in everything. Flavor, smokepoint, an excellent cooking fat.

[Winger Ed.]

Your making me miss my momma something fierce. she always served sliced cantalope on the side in the summer.

Here, we don't think of having fruit with Breakfast. But they sure do in other countries. Especially Mexico.
That TexMex-- burritos & tacos stuff we think of as 'Mexican food' is really about as Mexican as George Washington.

If ya go to a true Mexican restaurant,,, in Mexico-- half the Breakfast menu is fruit.

[No_1]

I'm one with a bacon grease pot on the back of our stove since "forever". Keep it for flavoring and some frying. The wife and I were in the little market in a small Mississippi town yesterday getting a few items. They had fancy quart tubs of "Bacon Grease" for sale. We looked at each other. If your going to buy bacon grease and not eat bacon??????. Amazing

We do the same at the family farm. For as long as I can remember an old beat up percolator coffee pot has occupied the right rear stove burner which is convenient considering that is also the location of the oven vent and the oven is on for every meal.

To add and strain fresh grease just pour through the coffee ground reservoir which strains all but the tiniest bits out. To pour grease, warm up the pot and pour until your heart is content. Quite the ingenious use of a old school coffee pot if you ask me.

[MT Gianni]

We don't cook a lot of bacon by itself. It's cooked and used as a grease for dutch oven cooking, brussel sprouts and bacon, potato soup and several other dishes.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

The local Hispanic community in my area has grown, and so have the number of Mexican Grocers. If they have a fresh meat counter and most do, they usually offer fresh rendered pork lard, just ask for "Manteca de Puerco."

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Jon from what I've studied from professional cholesterol doctors is that bacon or the grease doesn' t have any of the bad fats in it to cause cholesteral nor do eggs. Remember when they said decades ago eating bacon and eggs was super bad for you?

Yes, I agree.