Every time I tell someone I keep my bacon grease I get two kinds of responses. “Oh my God, are you serious? That’s so gross!” — or — “Wow, I didn’t know anyone else still did that. My mother/grandmother always had a can of it on the stove.” Sometimes I’d get both reactions at the same time … from the same person.
But every now and then, I get something that just goes above and beyond the normal reactions. Something that shows the difference between being involved and being committed. (If you haven’t heard the joke before: The chicken is involved in breakfast, the pig is committed.)
I’ll let Joseph Croft take it from here.
I love your book and your “Cook Like Grandma” blog! It’s great to know there’s others out there like me, who reject the “fat Nazis” and their poor-quality fat replacements.
I wanted to let you know I’ve discovered a really great method for making surplus bacon (and sausage) grease into good, clean, usable, lard. I already have a jar of bacon grease set aside for yummy bacon-greasy uses, of course, but I also have a wide-mouth quart jar next to the stove that extra bacon grease, and all other pork fat, goes into. Bacon grease, sausage grease, even Spam grease! If it’s pork fat, it goes in the jar!
When the jar is full, add the quart of fat with 3-4 quarts of water, in an 8 quart stock pot (plenty of room to boil). Bring it to a boil and let it boil for about an hour. Then, refrigerate until the fat has solidified. (This works great during a Minnesota winter when I can just set the pot outside the back door for about an hour!)
Side Note — I really like the refrigeration fat separation method much better than horsing-around with separating hot liquids. I do this to all my stocks as well. After simmering my turkey carcass all day long, I just set the pot outside overnight. In the morning I scrape the solidified turkey fat right off the top with a spoon. Then, I warm up the broth enough to melt the gelatin (but not hot enough to burn myself if I spill) and dump it through a colander to get the bones and turkey goop out.
When the fat is solid enough, carefully scoop it out into another large stock pot. Do your best to get only the fat, but don’t sweat it if you get some of the water with it. Start again with another 3-4 quarts of clean water, and repeat the process.
You may feel the need to do this a third time, but two washes have worked fine for me.
Finally, scoop your clean, solidified, fat back into a clean pan (you can use a smaller 3-4 quart pan now). Put it over medium heat and keep an eye on it. It will start out very cloudy, but as you hit a magical point where the last of the water has been driven out, it transitions from cloudy to a beautiful, golden, crystal clear!
Cool slightly, then pour into a clean, wide-mouth quart jar for storage.
The finished product smells clean and fresh, with just a tiny hint of subtle smoky flavor. It doesn’t have as high a smoke point as a good rendered leaf lard, but I still use it for frying when I want a more delicate flavor than bacon grease. Also, it make truly awesome pie crusts, rolls, and biscuits! You can use it for any recipe that calls for lard.
Incidentally, exactly the same method works great for cleaning up beef tallow that has been used for frying several times. After this treatment, it’s as good as new!
Hope you can share this with your other readers!
Thanks,
Joseph Croft
This is Drew again. I haven’t tried this yet, but my experience tells me it should work. I guess that means I can eat more bacon now, without worrying what to do with the grease. Thanks Joseph, for the great tip.
Joseph also left a tip on a few of my posts dealing with beef tallow.
After dicing up the suet, I put it in the freezer for a few minutes, then ran it through a meat grinder. This step eliminates the need to horse-around with the potato ricer at the end!Also, after bringing the ground suet and water mixture to a boil, I put a lid on it, and let it simmer on low heat for a good couple of hours. This extra cooking time really seamed to help break-down the suet nicely.
Now this is a guy who’s committed to using all his animal parts to their fullest.
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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16 Comments
Now this is perfect timing! As I was cooking my bacon this morning, I was thinking that I really ought to be saving the bacon grease to use elsewhere. But, I was concerned about storage. This solves the problem!
Thanks!
Great tip!
Drew, thanks to you my doctor is just going to throw up her hands and give up on me. I went home for lunch — heated up some pork tenderloin I cooked last night and made another huge batch of broccoli salad. I saved some of the bacon for fried rice tonight. If nothing else, I’ve become more frugal about using up everything that’s left over. This is a very good thing.
And here’s my own thumbs-up recommendation — those Debbie Meyer Green Bags are really excellent for keeping produce fresh longer. One of the big problems I’ve had as a single cook is being able to use all the stuff I buy before it goes bad. The bags paid for themselves the first week I used them, so they are a permanent part of my kitchen now.
With all the recipes I’ve learned from you and a few other cooking blogs, I’m finally figuring out how to buy the right amount of produce for several recipes during the week. It’s OK for me to buy a stalk of celery now because I know that I can use a couple of ribs in a recipe for Tuesday and use the rest on Friday, for example. Before it would all turn to mush.
And I have a bacon grease jar now too! I keep mine in the fridge, though. Just can’t quite convince myself to leave it out.
Speaking of bacon grease … I’m having some memories of chocolate chip cookies from my childhood made using bacon grease for at least a portion of the fat. Do you have any recipes like that?
Oh Great, hot grease with water, my kitchen wall is covered with hot splatter!!! Oh, by the way….I F….ING RENT, G///D//DAMMIT!
Oh man, that sucks. I hope you didn’t burn yourself in the process.
Yeah, rendering can be a bit of a messy process. I always put a splatter screen over the pan when I’m doing bacon, or anything deep fried.
Thanks so much for posting this and thanks to Joseph for sharing it. I have a bacon grease jar, and while I don’t have much other pork fat, this will really help me with storage.
Nice. I always save my bacon grease, it’s the best for sauteing onions.
I am thrilled beyond words for Joseph’s contribution! I have probably 3 pints of bacon grease in the frig right now… Just cannot bear to dispose of it! (I use canning jars to store it.) Can’t wait to share this with my sisters!
In a pinch I use store-bought canned green beans — First I drain most of their liquid, then I melt some bacon grease in a pot, maybe add some diced onion, and then heat the beans. Tasty!
I usually just filter mine, but I keep it in the fridge, too. Biggest reason is that I know if I don’t, one of these days I’m going to spill it.
I don’t want to be negative, honest, but I just can’t enjoy lard-based pie crusts. The texture’s fine, the flavor’s OK, but they always seem to have this grainy/sandy afterfeeling in my mouth that butter-based crusts don’t have.
So I recommend, if anyone cares what I recommend because it’s not my blog anyway, that you fry in the lard all you want, but stick to butter for your pastry. Especially if you might be baking anything I will eat.
Mike, not disputing your experience, just checking. Is it possible the crusts you had were made with “lard” instead of lard? I’ve seen products in the grocery store that said “lard” on the front, but the ingredients showed they were at least part vegetable oil.
I don’t know how this would compare, and I’m thinking this is a “someday” project for me. Meaning someday I want to try making several crusts and doing a blind taste test: all butter, butter and lard, all lard, shortening, butter and shortening, etc.
It’s possible, Drew, because I never checked the ingredients list beyond seeing lard on there. But over years of experiencing this, every time I notice this odd sandy mouth feel, I always find out there’s lard in the baked good. So I’ve avoided it whenever possible.
I would love to see the results of the blind testing. Heck, I’d like to be there for it.
Good luck.
Not only do I save bacon grease, but I have a special tin — part of a set of a cookie jar and salt and pepper shakers — specifically that says “Grease” on it, from the 1950s or so.
I cook everything in bacon fat — pancakes, potatoes, vegetables, eggs.
Sharon, I wish I had that tin. I might even leave it out on the stove if I had it.
http://www.tias.com/cgi-bin/google.fcgi/itemKey=3923585354
not the same as mine, but it’s a grease can.
(Actually, it’s an interesting story. When I was a kid, my mom had a copper colored aluminum cookie jar with a silhouette of two kids on it. When she died, I got it — and stupidly put it in the dishwasher, where half the paint was scoured off. so I went onto eBay, and surprisingly a few weeks later the full set came up and I jumped on it. I remember my mom telling me as a kid that a grease can went with it, and now I have it.)
That strainer lid is awesome. I’ll have to keep a lookout for something like that at the thrift shops and garage sales. If I ever saw something like that and it didn’t say “Grease” right on the side I wouldn’t have guessed what it was for.
Bed Bath & Beyond has one, too, for less.
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=15837578
If it were me and I was looking for one cheap, I'd check eBay. I don't think you'll find them at thrift stores.