Keeping a jar of leftover bacon grease on hand to use as cooking oil for vegetables, beans, dressings, and eggs is a time-honored chef's trick passed down by generations of grandmothers. But there's a good chance your grandmother wasn't following modern food safety guidelines with her collection and storage process.
Copy her results—but not her process—with these tips for cooking, collecting, and storing bacon grease from Stephen Chavez, chef-instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education, and Meredith Abbott, chef with Sur La Table.
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How to Collect Bacon Grease
Use this simple process to gather the leftover grease from your Sunday morning brunch bacon or your weekday BLTs.
Step 1: Cook
Whether you cook your bacon on the stovetop or in the oven, you can save the grease for future use. "Pan-frying gives little room for error with collecting bacon grease, because even a few burned solids will impart a burned flavor and dark color to the grease," says Chavez. He typically bakes bacon in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 18 to 20 minutes on a backing rack over a sheet pan, then collects the grease from the pan. "This gives a consistent color to the bacon and leaves the grease nice and clean," he says.
Step 2: Cool
Let the grease cool briefly before you start working with it, so you won't get burned by splatters or spills. If the grease cools to lower than 100 degrees, says Chavez, it will become a solid—in that case, you can reheat it gently until it returns to its liquid state.
Step 3: Strain
Keeping bacon bits out of your grease allows the grease to stay fresh for longer and improves the taste of your future dishes, so straining is key. "To strain the bacon grease, set a fine mesh strainer over a heat safe bowl or vessel," like a spouted glass measuring cup, says Abbott. (Chavez uses a coffee filter or cheesecloth.) "Pour the slightly cooled grease through the strainer," says Abbott. Use a heat-proof spatula to scrape every last drop.
Step 4: Transfer
Transfer the strained grease to a heat-safe food storage container. Both experts recommend glass or metal containers, which will prevent the grease from picking up flavors and odors left behind on plastic.
"A useful tip is to freeze the bacon grease in small silicone molds, then pop them out into a zip top freezer bag so you have easy individual portions to use," says Abbott.
How to Store Bacon Grease
Though previous generations of home chefs kept bacon grease on the counter, experts recommend storing yours in the refrigerator or the freezer. "It's best to not keep the bacon grease at room temperature because any microparticles of the bacon can cause the grease to go rancid," says Abbott.
Store your grease in a glass or metal container with a tight-fitting lid. "Because most fats can absorb surrounding flavors, and are susceptible to spoilage, I would always keep it covered with a lid in order to make it last longer and [stay] fresher," says Chavez.
While using plastic wrap directly on top of the grease blocks it from the air in the container, that extra step isn't required. "If it is refrigerated, only the very top layer is exposed to air," Chavez says. "If you scrape that off, the solid grease below stays fresh for a long time."
How Long Bacon Grease Lasts
Expect the solid grease to last three to six months in the refrigerator and six to 12 months in the freezer.
How to Keep Bacon Grease Fresher for Longer
If you want to help your grease last as long as possible, use a new container for each collection—don't add new grease on top of solid grease. "[When] the new grease is always on top, the grease on the bottom will ultimately go rancid and give that flavor to the entire batch," says Chavez. "If you do this, be sure to date the container, and keep in mind to discard it about every two to three months and start a new jar."
For best results, the chefs stress the importance of straining the grease before storing it to remove any bacon particles. "You should always strain it before storing," says Chavez."This will eliminate the dark bits from giving off a bitter burnt flavor, and will leave a very clean white fat once it solidifies."
How to Use Bacon Grease
Adding a little bacon grease to your favorite recipes gives them a rich, smoky depth. "Bacon fat is a saturated fat like butter, coconut oils, and other animal derived fats, so it can be substituted for any of those," says Abbott. However, Chavez points out that, like other fats that are solid when cooled, bacon grease "tends to have a clinging mouthfeel," he says. "To compensate for this,I recommend using mostly a neutral oil, such as canola, and using just a bit of bacon fat for added flavor."
The chefs recommend using bacon fat for a variety of dishes, including fried eggs, refried beans, roasted and sauteed vegetables, and vinaigrettes. "I especially like using it for a warm salad dressing on top of a classic bistro frisee salad, which includes bacon lardons and a poached egg on top," says Chavez. "The egg combined with the bacon fat and red wine vinegar makes an amazingly delicious dressing."
Bacon Grease vs. Lard
Though it's easy to confuse bacon grease and lard, they each have their own flavor profile, and aren't interchangeable in recipes. "Bacon grease is different from lard," says Abbott. "Lard is generally flavorless, and many pastry chefs love using it for the lightest and flakiest pie crusts, while bacon grease will have a smoky flavor, which is better for savory cooking."
