Look No Further Than Your Pantry To Clean Up Bacon Grease

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Nothing beats the smell of bacon cooking in the morning — or any time of day, really. After taking the time to prepare a lovely breakfast and minimizing the amount of bacon grease splatters, don't ruin things by dumping your bacon grease down the drain. Seriously, the grease will turn solid and clog your drain. Avoid the plumber bill and make clean up easy by grabbing some handy dandy baking soda. 

Sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda onto the bacon grease in the pan and let it sit for a few minutes. Eventually, what you'll end up with is a paste-like substance in the pan which you can scrape into a container to let cool before you throw it in the trash. Since it's destined for the bin, scraping the paste into tinfoil can be a good option. Just let it cool and then crumple and toss.

This method works because when baking soda is heated up (like when it's busy absorbing bacon grease) it releases carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. Carbon dioxide is already in a fully oxidized state and won't result in a fire as it isn't chemically combustible. This method can be used to clean up bacon grease that's spilled over as well. You can use this trick whenever you cook bacon if you want to, but there's so much more that you can do with leftover bacon grease.

Bacon grease is good for just about anything you can imagine, from sautéing vegetables to replacing butter when cooking up fried eggs. Other ways you can reuse it include using it as an oil replacer to make stove-top popcorn for a savory treat. When you're done popping the popcorn, sprinkle some black pepper on top and thank me later. For many recipes, bacon grease is a good oil or butter replacement, depending on what flavor profile you desire. The bacon you cooked long ago is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

There are a few ways to store bacon grease that will extend its shelf life. The first is to strain the chunky bits. You don't want to have pieces of literal bacon in your grease because that will cause it to spoil faster. Instead, use a fine mesh strainer to separate the grease from the food bits as you pour it into a glass container and wait for it to cool. For a longer-lasting grease stash, store it in the fridge where it will keep for around four months. You can also store it in the freezer, where it will keep indefinitely. If you're unsure whether the grease is good, give it a good sniff. If it smells foul, throw it out, cook some bacon, and start your grease hoarding over again.