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Leftover potatoes fried in bacon grease along with some finely chopped onion, a leaf or two of fresh sage and a good sprinkling of fresh black pepper is delicious, and hard to beat.

I always have a jar in the fridge. It makes wonderful pancakes, biscuits, corn bread. Indispensable in green beans, limas, succotash, and for making roux.
It also is the best thing going for seasoning cast iron.

I save it and use it as lard. I've got a container specially designed for its saving in the fridge, with a strainer top so you get relatively pure lard without the bits in it. To the right you can see the fitting strainer and lid.

This is the one that you will find in our fridge.

Link.

Mike

Oh my god- I dearly love bacon in all shapes and forms but one heart attack and a several-year struggle to get my cholesterol in line keeps me away from it (that and a whole lot of other not so good for you things I used to live on). Now I use it as a once-in-a-while treat, and don't even think of saving the grease for anything.

Back when I did revolutionary war re-enacting, one of my buddies insisted on using bacon drippings to "oil" the outside and inside of his musket barrel- in the interest of "historical" (hysterical?) accuracy. I used to scold him for that inane trick but he didn't listen, his perpetually rusty gun not-withstanding. He just couldn't grasp the fact of its high salt content... (Brown Bess musket barrels are left bright- no browning or bluing, and they were hard enough to keep nice using good products.)

I would think that few did that and used lard instead, without salt. miles

Your doctors are still advising based on flawed 1950s dietary science originating in a flawed study by Ancel Keys. The cause of cardiovascular disease isn't dietary saturated fat or cholesterol. It's an inflammation inducing, high starch, high processed food, high sugar, diet that causes it. The science proving this has been generally available since Dr. Atkins recommended the change in medical thinking on this starting in the middle 1960s, but is only now starting to be accepted by the mainstream of contemporary medicine. Some doctors are still behind the curve, though.

"The myth that saturated fat causes heart disease has undoubtedly harmed an incalculable number of lives over the past several decades. While it may have begun as an unsupported marketing strategy for Crisco, this mistaken belief began solidifying in the mid-1950's when Dr. Ancel Keys published a paper comparing saturated fat intake and heart disease mortality. Keys based his theory on a study of six countries, in which higher saturated fat intake equated to higher rates of heart disease. However, he conveniently ignored data from 16 other countries that did not fit his theory.

Had he chosen a different set of countries, the data would have shown that increasing the percent of calories from fat reduces the number of deaths from coronary heart disease. And, if all 22 countries for which data was available at the time of his study are included, you find that those who consume the highest percentage of saturated fat have the lowest risk of heart disease.

Unfortunately, the idea that saturated fat is bad for your heart has become so ingrained in the medical and health community that it's very difficult to break through that misinformation barrier. Still, the fact of the matter is that the saturated fat-heart disease link was a hypothesis that did not stand up to further scrutiny." Link

Yep. Bacon wasn't a particularly popular food in the US till Beech-Nut Corp hired publicist and advertizing genius Edward Bernays to popularize it as a breakfast food (in combination with eggs) in the 1920s.

oh goodness gracious. that is gold to a cook.

saute some onion in it and add fresh green beans with some fresh ground pepper.

use it in a cast iron pan for cornbread. put a tablespoon and a half in pan and let it preheat in oven while getting your cornbread mix ready. gives cornbread a mighty fine crunchy crust.

season turnips, collards and mustard greens with it.

peel and slice a rutabaga into slices about a half inch thick. then cut into large diced pieces. put two tablespoons of bacon grease into a four quart sauce pot. add a half cup to three quarter cup of sugar and enough water to cover top by and inch or so. bring to slow boil for about thirty to forty-five minutes covered. serve with fried pork chops, black-eyed peas,cornbread, fresh sliced tomatoes, mild chow chow and sweet tea!!

couple tablespoons in the saucepot with enough water to steam green cabbage. add fresh ground pepper to taste and a little salt.

keep stored in fridge and it will last forever.

I use as vegetable seasoning, as mentioned above. I also will slice up some red potatoes into medallions and fry in a tablespoon of bacon grease with salt and pepper. Makes really good "home fries". My house eats a good bit of bacon and we can never use up all the grease.

No cholesterol issue here but it can't be good so I don't touch it.

I would guess that we have 2-3 pint jars of it at any given time in the fridge. We do the fried taters regularly and as stated above, a kitchen isn't complete without it!

it's the greatest for frying liver too. saute some onions (butter or bacon grease) then lightly fry your liver in the bacon grease. out of this world.

Don't let my dog hear you say that.

Liquid Love along with Duck Fat, I use it in just about all my cooking, you don't need much, just use and eat in moderation. One of my favorite things for Lunch is a BLT on toast, with a little mayo that I make myself, Soon the local tomatoes will be ready and well its going to be some good eats for a while, Good stuff!

Mustard greens wilted in bacon grease will make you slap your mamma.

Love mustard greens. Will have to try that. I usually use butter.

my grandmother had a small aluminum canister on her stove with a strainer on the top...she would pour the left over bacon grease thru the strainer and it would filter out the bits of bacon and the pure grease would run down in the bottom, cool and solidify...she used it for just about everything...haven't seen one of those little grease pots in years.....

OMG, I haven't seen one like those in years. I remember them very well. My Grandma, aunts, and my Mom always had one by the stove. My Mom's was a staple in our house for decades. The handle broke off and she still continued to use it for years.

Forgot to mention that I have a hard time keeping enough around. Seems I am perpetually out of bacon grease because I use it in nearly every dish. I have even been known to fry a pound of bacon just for the grease.

Too bad we're not neighbors. Although I use it pretty regularly, I collect it faster than I use it, so have to throw away big gobs of it from time to time.