Upgrade Canned Veggies With Bacon Grease And You'll Never Look Back
Canned vegetables are an easy, convenient way to green up your dinner plate at a moment's notice. But the vegetables are pre-cooked and often preserved with little to no seasoning, leaving much to be desired in terms of flavor. Not to mention, canned vegetables sometimes have a mushy texture, so unless you're planning to incorporate them into a casserole or baked dish, this quality is quite off-putting.
But that doesn't mean you should swear off canned vegetables altogether. You could add your own seasoning or dowse the veggies in a tasty sauce. But a more creative way to heat and firm up those veggies is to cook them in bacon grease. The rendered fat from bacon can crisp up lifeless canned vegetables, effectively making them taste like, well, bacon! And there's no need to search for bacon grease in the grocery aisles. Simply fry up a few pieces of bacon for breakfast and you have a delicious way to use up the leftover bacon grease. If you're cooking for a fussy family of picky eaters, the smell of bacon grease wafting through the kitchen will be hard to resist and may convert the vegetable-averse to actually enjoying their veggies.
Popular methods to elevate canned vegetables with bacon grease
Canned green beans are a favorite choice for cooking in bacon grease, especially in Southern cuisine. One popular method involves pouring the green beans into a pot, canned liquid and all, and boiling it along with bacon grease. The liquid used to preserve the green beans and other canned vegetables is often very salty. When this liquid cooks down, the beans take on the salt as well as the bacon grease, requiring no extra seasoning.
To transform the texture of canned veggies from mush to magic, you could also try frying them in the bacon grease alone. This method doesn't involve the liquid from the can at all. Instead, draining and drying the vegetables from the can will prepare them perfectly for frying. The bacon grease will make the veggies nice and crisp, ideally creating a char that deepens and richens the flavor with a crunchy texture. If you want to dive even deeper into Southern comfort food, some other great canned vegetables to buy and try cooking in bacon grease would be collard greens or corn.
More clever uses for leftover bacon grease
If you've exhausted the pantry of canned vegetables and are sold on the method, there's no need to stop there. Bacon grease can be a perfect fat substitute to cook and upgrade a myriad of foods. For example, if you're already frying up some bacon for breakfast, just keep the grease in the pan for frying your eggs. They will taste savory and meaty, marrying them with the bacon, especially if you plan to combine the two in a next-level breakfast sandwich.
No matter the sandwich you're making, why not toast your bread in the bacon grease as well? Skip the toaster and give two slices of bread a heavenly golden, decadent toasting in the bacon grease remaining in the skillet. Leftover bacon fat can also be put to good use with canned refried beans, boosting a bland, mushy blend of beans with the savory, salty taste of bacon. While proteins and breakfast food favorites go hand in hand with bacon grease, the magic the fat can work on canned vegetables is truly special.