Howdy! Thanks for dropping in to see what’s on my mind! I’m Emily, a Type 1 Diabetic, AVM survivor, and lover of all things home: food, decor, DIY, and every aspect of healthy living. You may have caught my roasted vegetable posts that use bacon fat or bacon grease as the “oil” for roasting (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, sweet potato fries). Today I want to share how to keep rendered bacon fat. It’s little tips like these that I find make my life easier if someone would just share!
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Roasted vegetables are the bomb. If you are new to eating vegetables or just trying to figure out how to incorporate more into your diet, you must try roasting them. Roasting amplifies flavor of the vegetable, allows you to add additional and complementing flavors, and is just plain easier to eat!
How to Collect Bacon Fat
Let’s jump right in to how exactly to collect and keep rendered bacon fat…aka liquid gold!
Pour Bacon Grease When Warm
For the cleanest looking fat, pour the rendered fat from the skillet or baking sheet while still slightly warm and in liquid form.
The bits of bacon that get stuck to the pan or parchment paper will, for the most part, remain there. This will result in a cooled fat that is almost perfectly white.
If you like a very clean fat, then strain through a coffee filter to catch all bits of bacon.
Scrape Bacon Grease When Cold
However, it’s no big deal if you can’t get to storing the bacon fat when it’s still liquid. Life happens! If you let it cool, it will turn a cloudy white and firm up. Simply use a rubber spatula to scrape the grease into your bacon fat jar.
Since you are scraping the pan, those baked on bits of bacon will come up with the fat resulting in stored fat that is speckled with bacon bits. Don’t worry about this less “pure” looking fat. It’s still good! Use it anyway! The bacon bits will only improve the flavor of the next dish you make.
Alternatively, you could warm up the fat in the oven or on the stove to pour nicely into your jar.
The Best Jar for Bacon Fat Storing
Now let’s move on to what kind of jar to use. Truthfully, you could put it in anything, but you know there’s a smell associated with bacon so let me give you my best suggestion.
The Weck pint jar
These are the jars
Bacon Fat Storage Tips
So where do you store bacon fat and for how long? Well, that all depends on how quickly you intend to use it!
Room Temperature
The easiest way is to just place your sealed jar of bacon drippings where you keep other oils and vinegars. It is shelf stable for about a month.
Bacon fat will turn rancid if left for too long. It has a very distinct smell…I once found a forgotten jar in the depths of a corner cabinet. Don’t worry if you’ll recognize a rancid smell or not…you will! If it smells like bacon, use it!
Refrigerator
If you don’t see yourself using the bacon fat within a month or so, then pop the jar in the fridge! Refrigerated bacon fat will keep for up to six months!
Freezer
What if you need even more time than 6 months?? Well, you can store it in the freezer too. However, for ease of use, you should freeze it in ice cube trays or something similar so it can be easily portioned out for use. Bacon fat will keep in the freezer for a year!
However, if you need a year to use the drippings from a pound of bacon…
Eat More Roasted Vegetables!
Just a friendly reminder! I use my bacon drippings almost daily, likely 5 days a week, so there’s no worry over here about it going bad!
Do you recycle your bacon fat? I wonder if you find it kind of gross. I did at first, but it’s just so delicious to cook with that I got over it! If this is new to you, I hope you’ll try some of these tips to begin to keep rendered bacon fat for future use! Happy cooking!
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