If you just finished cooking a tasty batch of bacon, the fun’s not over. Bacon grease may look like something destined for the garbage, but it has culinary uses that should not go unheeded. With a pan full of bacon drippings, you’re sitting on a shimmering sea of opportunities to add flavor to food and drink. You can make bacon-washed bourbon, add bacon-y flavor to salad dressing or mix it into burger meat for an all-in-one bacon cheeseburger.
Bacon grease is packed with salty, slightly smoky flavor that you can use to add an umami burst to any number of dishes and recipes. A little goes a long way and you’ll only need a small amount of bacon fat to make your next stir fry or skillet of scrambled eggs sing.
You’ll hang on to some of that leftover bacon grease if you know what’s good for ya.
Here’s how to use bacon fat in the kitchen.
First, store it properly
Most nonmetal containers will melt or crack when hot bacon grease is poured in, but this silicon bacon bin is resistant up to 500 degrees F.
First things first: You’ll want to store your bacon grease properly for future use. While it shouldn’t spoil, we still recommend keeping it in the fridge since it may have pieces of pork running throughout.
Keep it in a metal can and cover it since the pungent bacon smell can permeate other foods in the fridge. If you’re going to store it in a glass or plastic container, wait for the grease to cool completely before you transfer it. This $16 silicone bacon bin has a built-in strainer to sift out the bacon bits.
Fold it into a hamburger
A little bacon fat mixed into ground beef goes a long way.
If you want a seriously punched-up burger, fold a teaspoon of bacon fat into the ground beef or turkey before it hits the grates. You won’t need much to turn a basic burger into a pseudo bacon cheeseburger. Be aware that the burger will spit and sizzle more than a burger without pork fat but it will be worth the danger for all that extra flavor.
Season a cast-iron skillet
Use a bit of bacon grease mixed with your go-to seasoning wax to pack your cast-iron skillets with flavor.
Seasoning your cast-iron pan is key for keeping the surface of the skillet nonstick. Doing this regularly, along with washing cast-iron cookware properly, will also build a base flavor that the pan imparts to certain foods such as steaks, burgers, chicken and hash browns. To season with bacon grease, add a small amount of the fat to your favorite cast-iron seasoning wax — I like Knapp — and proceed as you normally would.
Add smokey pork flavor to a stir-fry
Add a teaspoon of bacon fat to your next stir fry and thank me later.
The next time you’re whipping up a quick stir-fry for dinner, toss in a teaspoon of bacon grease to punch up the flavor. Don’t go overboard or you’ll end up with an overly greasy dish and a bacon flavor dominating all.
Add savory richness to a batch of cornbread or cookies
Cornbread will benefit from a small hit of that leftover bacon grease.
Bacon and cornbread are another magical combo. Since cornbread can easily dry out, adding a teaspoon of bacon fat to the mixture along with butter, will ensure the bread is moist with a hint of delicious bacon flavor.
You can also add some bacon grease to a batch of chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. Bacon works with a lot of other flavors, like maple, chocolate or vanilla, so don’t be shy about trying it with your favorite cookie recipe.
Make bacon-washed bourbon
Add bacon fat to bourbon, shake and freeze. Then separate the solidified fat from the booze and you’ve got something special.
I don’t know who originated the concept of adding bacon fat to bourbon, but I’d like to buy them a drink. Fat-washing booze is simple, just add an ounce or two of liquified bacon fat to a bottle of bourbon. Shake and let it hang out in the fridge or freezer for a few days. Strain the solidified fat out of the bourbon with a mesh strainer and you’re left with seriously smoky brown booze to drink neat or use in cocktails.
Use bacon fat to make scrambled eggs
Bacon and eggs? Who would have thought?
Bacon and eggs make as good a duo as any other in the breakfast universe. Add a small bit of bacon grease to your pan with butter before dropping in the beaten eggs and stirring slowly.
Mix it with another cooking oil to sear steaks or chicken
Add some bacon fat to your cooking oil the next time you fry a piece of meat.
You won’t want to use bacon grease alone to saute foods, but you should consider adding a little to your cooking oil of choice, be it olive oil, flaxseed oil, avocado oil or another.
Make bacon air fryer Brussels sprouts
Toss a pound of Brussels sprouts with some bacon grease and olive oil and pop them in the air fryer.
Brussels sprouts are dense and make a good candidate to be air-fried. Toss them with a little bacon grease and then into the air fryer for 20 minutes. They’ll taste so good, you’ll forget you’re eating a vegetable at all.
Make a bacon fat salad dressing
Most salad dressing calls for some oil component, so why not use delicious bacon grease? You won’t want to use bacon fat as the sole fat component but mix a small dab in with olive oil in your favorite vinaigrette recipe and you won’t be sorry.
Pour it down the drain
Don’t put bacon grease down the drain. It’s about the fastest way to clog it up.
If you pour even one batch of bacon grease down the kitchen sink, you’ll likely be on the phone with a plumber before the week’s over. Grease solidifies when cool and can ruin your plumbing.
Compost it
Bacon grease can’t be turned into viable compost.
Bacon grease and other super oily foods can’t be composted. Keep them out of your home compost pile or electronic countertop composter.
Pour it into the garbage while it’s still hot
Do this and you’ll burn a hole in the bottom of the garbage bag. It won’t be a pretty scene when you try to take the trash out next. If you’re going to trash it, pour it into a metal can and let it cool before discarding it.
