I don't keep our bacon grease. Poor man's gravy -- that is interesting. My Dad used to work on a farm (in the very early 1940s) and they would fry bread in the grease, "fried bread" -- for breakfast. Working on a farm they had more food than folks who only had ration coupons.

O.M.G. I have never heard of "Poor Man's Gravy", but I could not cook without "bacon drippings". Doesn't that sound so much better than grease? Green beans, cornbread, ettoffee, ect. I am always almost running out and I only use about a teaspoon or two a time.

Used to keep it in the refrig in a small Crisco can when they were metal. When one needed a bit for something, it was there and fresh. My mother kept hers in old coffee cans in the refrig.

My grandma and my mom kept drippin's in a metal can with a lid on the back of the stove. I keep mine in the fridge, but being a good Southern girl, I simply must have the drippin's to cook with: corn bread, especially, beans, greens, fried okra, and tons of other things. I love bacon, but even if I didn't, I'd fry it for the drippin's.

I have THIS container. I used to go thru lots of bacon and kept it in a cabinet. I used to use at least a tablespoon for a loaf of baked bread but have lately used butter instead. I usually re-season cast iron with it. It also ends up in greens and corn bread and at least once as part of a gumbo roux.

I'm not sure if my increased butter in bread decreased usage, or my better attention, but I noticed that cabinet storage was probably causing it to go bad over time so I began keeping the container in the refer. This seems to improve stability but unfortunately, the cold container decreases effective screening or filtering.

I always keep a jar of each bacon dripping and chicken fat in the refrigerator. I love the flavors they add to foods. My daughter is dairy-free and bacon drippings are a great substitute for butter.

I keep bacon drippings as well, in a pyrex custard cup in the fridge, my parents kept it in one of those small lidded pyrex refrigerator dishes, I would too if I had one, they were perfect for it. I use it in cooking and on my cast iron skillets, I love bacon but I love the drippings even more.

While visiting a friend in another town when about 12 yrs old....her mom made Poor Man's gravy, my first for that. Told my Mom when I got home and she was acquainted with it from her childhood.

We keep bacon grease too. I try to keep a good bit on hand in glass jars in the fridge. We use it in place of butter/oil for cooking lots of things. The flavor it gives is so wonderful!! My mom does the same and so did my grandmother.

I keep it only if it is from nitrate/nitrite free bacon or my own homemade pancetta.

I keep and use bacon grease quite often. I keep mine in a small tight-lidded container in the freezer. Nothing like a tablespoon or two to fry eggs in a cast iron pan. Ideal to sauté potatoes when making chowder. Also great to brown your beef when making chili.

I like the idea of finding a use for "by-products" of food I've already paid for instead of throwing it out. Bacon drippings, rendering lard from pork skin (subsequently pork rinds from that same skin), making broth/stock from bones and vegetable tops/stems, etc...

Red eye gravy is another version of poor man's gravy.

I remember my mom talking about her mom making poor man's gravy using the water from boiling potatoes instead of just plain water.

My grandmother was a baker in the 1930s. There's no way to generate as much bacon fat as she needed for her baking, so she got it in bulk from the butcher. I believe you can still do that.

What do y'all do to clean up the fat before storing. Filtering through a cheesecloth seems like a good first step, but are there other things you can do to make it last?

I have no ties to the South but religiously save my bacon drippings sparse as they are since I cook for just myself. My mother did too. I have a mini mug with the handle broken off that I've used for years. Fried potatoes, fried fish, and a tiny bit added to green beans are the main uses.

dchall: did you miss my link in the 5th reply? Perhaps I can display the picture of the strainer/container.

I like that container but it's rather large for me, 32 ounces - dat's a lotta bacon drippin's.

At this point it's a bit much for me too. I used to have a taller, much narrower and smaller one with a handle on the side, but it didn't appear after we moved. I believe that type is also for sale on line.

My mom's kitchen condiment set included one something like yours, chas045, but it only held maybe a pint or so at most if you filled it completely and it was tall rather than wide. I wish I still had those--all copper-finished aluminum, would be considered very MCM today.

Yes! my mom always saved hers and added some to her pie crusts, so I did too... I also like it for frying eggs, onions, etc. I still save it, but seldom use it anymore. I have a perfect small lidded crock that's glazed on the inside only. I clean it out and refresh it whenever I have the fat from really good bacon. :)

I always have crock full of bacon drippings on the counter next to the stove.

I keep it in the fridge just because I live in Houston where it's hot most of the time. I don't bother to strain it. It settles on the bottom anyway.

This is a nice surprise - don't think I've ever seen it mentioned before. So many people against animal fat nowadays.

i am 65 mom was born in 1920 i don't recall her making poor man gravy, but we kept our bacon grease in the fridge and occasionally she would heat a few drops and put it on leftover biscuits with a touch of yellow mustard and a sliver of onion those were deliicious little sandwiches of course everything we had was organic , the pigs were fed with slops and butchered by family members we made red eye gravy from ham and i don't recall how it was done.... i "deep fry" my bacon, yes, it sounds silly, but it turns out lovely and crisp and doesn't make a mess at all i fry it in canola oil, use the oil possibly 3 times fry it in a dutch oven.....love it..... takes us a month to use a pound of bacon though....and our fav is blts.....

It doesn't replace my usual olive oil. That said, previous to my latest autoimmune diet adventure I wouldn't have considered cooking with bacon grease. But NOW, I relish it!

I'm limited with allergies to the allium family and certain spices and all peppers are off the table. Nitrate free bacon grease really helps to flavor some of my sautéed foods. It's stored in a glass jar on the door of the fridge.

I never throw away bacon grease. It's liquid gold. Don't strain it, but do refrigerate. Must have it for cornbread. Green beans. Lots of things. Oh, dear. Now I want cornbread. And bacon . . .

I also keep bacon grease. I have one of those old 50s containers, aluminum, like this, but the lid is black:

https://img0.etsystatic.com/015/0/6019962/il_570xN.451533708_b037.jpg

I use it for greasing the cast iron skillet when I make corn bread, for frying potatoes, I usually just cook bacon for the green beans. Grandma used it for everything, including hot on her pancakes instead of butter and syrup and for frying eggs. She also made "bacon grease gravy", and sometimes, instead of water she'd use milk because we had a cow that we milked. I used to love the creamy stuff over mashed potatoes, but just the thought makes Elery wince in disgust, so I probably won't make any, LOL.

And today, at Meijer, next to the coconut oil, I found a jar of duck fat! I restrained myself and didn't buy it, in spite of the thought of duck fat fries...

Annie

I use it to grease pans and to add flavor to certain dishes. I use it mostly on a whim without having an actual recipe that calls for it. The last time I used it I think it was for kale I was cooking. Usually I would cook it with olive oil, salt, and pepper but this time I used a little less olive oil and some drippings instead.

Martha Stewart says it's ok so it must be: http://www.marthastewart.com/1013547/pan-o-rama-top-10-revelatory-uses-leftover-bacon-grease#202119