The Old-School Ingredient That Instantly Elevates Your Grilled Cheese Game

Grilled cheese is a kitchen tinkerer's best friend. In addition to a plethora of potential carb and dairy combinations, you can give your grilled cheese a gourmet finish with a little shower of Parmesan on the bread. Additionally, you can make a killer grilled cheese with something sweet like a swipe of jam and otherwise reimagine the classic combination of bread and cheese forevermore. Some folks even swear that a frying agent switcheroo will make your grilled cheese taste like heaven with one simple swap: butter for mayo. But one heat-conducting fat merits even more experimentation: bacon grease.

Bacon grease is just the liquid gold to zhuzh up your grilled cheese routine. Now, devoted bacon grilled cheese households are likely already familiar with this slick flip. If you've just cooked the bacon anyway, you may be inspired to add the sandwich to your currently greased pan before you even register what you're doing. This could be how a lot of history's greatest inventions have happened. And you can easily repeat this little upgrade whether you've recently crisped up bacon or not.

The first step to properly storing and reusing your bacon grease is to cook the bacon. A typical package of bacon yields about ½ cup of bacon fat. If you're cooking the bacon in a pan on the stovetop, you may need to work in batches to safely remove the grease, which could get tricky. Should you prefer to make your bacon in the oven, place your bacon strips on a wire rack over a baking sheet to make collecting the grease a little easier. Once the grease has cooled, you may need to run it through a strainer, like cheesecloth, to remove any errant bacon bits. Drain the fat into something large like a mixing bowl first, then strain it, and ideally put it into an airtight container like a glass jar. It can last up to six months in the refrigerator.

Storing the bacon fat in the refrigerator will change the grease from liquid to a spreadable solid. When grilled cheese time rolls around again, you can simply spoon out a tablespoon and use it like you would any other cooking fat. Bacon grease may not completely transform your grilled cheese to magical heights, but it can pump up your other ingredients with a subtle, salty, and savory punch.