How to Save Your Bacon and Save Cash Too

After you are done frying up a pound of your favorite mouth-watering, sizzling bacon, and it's draining on a plate lined with paper towels, don't throw out the grease! What do you think makes Grandma's artery-clogging pancake, bacon, and eggs breakfasts so good? She uses the bacon grease to cook up the pancakes!

Season your cast iron pans or stoneware pans with bacon grease. My favorite way to cook bacon is in a stoneware pan in the oven. It's so simple that you'll wonder why you never thought of it yourself! No more standing over the frying pan with bacon grease splattering you and the smell tempting you to snitch so many pieces as they're done that you end up with a third of the amount you started with. Preheat the oven to 350° to 375° Fahrenheit with the oven rack in the highest position. If you want bacon pieces instead of strips of bacon, cut them on a cutting board before putting them in the pan. In recipes that call for crumbled bacon or bacon pieces, I chop the bacon into ½ to 1-inch pieces before cooking, place in a stoneware pan that has edges to catch the grease (no flat pizza stones or cookie sheets), and bake for up to an hour in the oven, stirring every ten minutes. During the process I may pour off the bacon grease once (into a glass container) so it doesn't get too high in the pan and slow the baking process. Cast iron pans and stoneware pans get better with age and ask for a strict "no soap" policy. Bacon grease can season your pan in no time at all. Soon you won't be using any spray at all when cooking and baking in them. And it doesn't leave a bacon flavor after it's been washed out with hot water and dried. I just made a batch of cream cheese brownies without any spray and they came out of the pan with ease.

Save your bacon grease in the refrigerator. After you've fried up your pound of bacon, several eggs, and a dozen pancakes for your Saturday family breakfast, any bacon grease you have leftover can be stored for quite a time in the refrigerator. Simply store it in a glass jar with a lid next to your ketchup and mayonnaise jars. Label it so your kids or spouse don't toss it out-not that they are prone to cleaning out the refrigerator on a whim!

Cook your pancakes or French toast in bacon grease instead of vegetable oil, butter, or margarine. Vegetable oil is not any healthier for you than bacon grease unless it's canola oil. And unless you're frying fish, you don't want to fry in canola oil because it has a "fishy odor" about it-unless of course you like the prospect of fishy pancakes and French toast. Butter and margarine burn faster than bacon grease and result in a lot of smoke. Bacon grease gives your pancakes and French toast that wonderful homemade flavor you remember Grandma's pancakes having.

Fry eggs in bacon grease. There's no need to season your eggs with extra salt and pepper if they've been fried up in bacon grease. A very small amount of bacon grease can go a long way with your taste buds. See what a difference a little bacon grease will do next time you make a fried egg sandwich.