Bacon (ingredient, grilled, freezer, health)

[jtur88]

What is Bacon's place in your cuisine/diet? How do you like it?

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I use bacon only as an additive in cooking. If I am sauteeing onions to be included in a meat dish (i.e., almost always), I put a cut up ounce of bacon in the frying pan, and sautee my onions in the bacon grease, and leave the pieces in there. Or, I stir the flour into it for (biscuits and) gravy. Of course, I buy the cheapest I can find, since I use it mostly for the rendered grease.

I keep it in the freezer, and cut off a half-inch crosswise end when needed. It takes me a couple of months to eat a pound of it (which now weighs 12 ounces), so it doesn't scare me health-wise. I always pop a piece of raw bacon in my mouth while cutting it up. Nice.

[Fontucky]

• As a source for the most important cooking additive, bacon grease
• As an additive ingredient to omelets and frittatas
• Flavor enhancer
• To eat as is
• To make a grilled cheese better
• Green beans enhancer

[elnina]

I don't buy/eat bacon. Bacon is processed food, full o saturated fat, salt, nitrates and cholesterol.

[lisa53109]

To me (not vegan/veg) bacon is as important in cooking as salt/pepper/onion/garlic.

[graytabbie]

I only buy the pre-cooked bacon (don't want to deal with the grease) and eat it occasionally. I could be a vegetarian if it wasn't for bacon.

[chicagojlo]

I prefer European style back bacon, to the American kind, so I don't use it much anymore.

My family likes it for breakfast, I add it to Alfredo sauce (cutting off a chunk from the freezer as detailed above), add it to beef stew, add it to a ragout style bolognese sauce, I've also been known to put it on top of salad to convince my husband that there's meat on his plate!

Interestingly the grease is my least favorite bit. I usually rinse the pan out after cooking the bacon before cooking anything else for my dish, and add the cooked bacon at the end. The taste is just so overwhelming otherwise.

[Beretta]

Duplicate thread.