- clarified bacon fat in place of lard or Crisco in pastry To clarify fat, add fat to a small saucepan of water. Heat to boiling and simmer for 5 minutes. Allow to cool, chill, and pour cloudy water off of the solidified fat. Add more water to the saucepan and repeat the simmer/chilling process 2 or 3 additional times. The final clarified fat has lost its meaty flavor and can be used for baking biscuits or making pie pastry.
- making gravy immediately after frying ground beef or sausage This gravy isn't part of the meal for which the meat was prepared but to be frozen and used later to top biscuits or Yorkshire pudding, with or without tofu chunks added (makes a protein/carb/fat portion of supper).
- making gravy, as above, but adding milk to use in place of cream-of-whatever soup for casseroles Sausage gravy, made with some milk, is great in a green bean casserole instead of the usual cream of mushroom soup.
- making a large batch of chicken, turkey or ham gravy to divide into containers for the freezer for serving over cooked meat, potatoes, noodles or rice at another meal.
- I store some fat, as is, in containers in the freezer, labeled as to which kind of fat When cooking, I use a blend of this meat fat and oil to sauté items which don't contain their own fat, like bean burger patties, or, for the onions at the beginning of making a pot of soup.
Just a note, ground beef and breakfast sausage fat have little flavor of their own, so I add a substantial amount of dried herbs to either when making gravy. I like sage and thyme added to sausage gravy and thyme, oregano, black pepper and soy sauce added to ground beef gravy.
So, what do you do with leftover meat fat?
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