Bacon and eggs are a match made in Heaven. They go perfectly together on the plate, but do they also go perfectly in the pan? Can you cook eggs in bacon grease?
You can cook eggs in bacon grease. Cooking eggs in bacon grease (whether scrambled or fried) will add a salty, smoky flavor to the eggs. The bacon grease will also help prevent the eggs from sticking to the pan.
So cooking eggs in bacon grease is a win-win! It will make the eggs taste amazing, and it will help prevent sticking! I don’t know about you, but when that fried egg sticks to the pan when I try to flip it, cracking the yoke, I get pretty annoyed. So what else do we need to know about cooking eggs in bacon grease??
Can You Cook Eggs In The Same Pan As Bacon?
You can cook eggs and bacon in the same pan or skillet, but not at the same time. The bacon takes much longer to heat to the required 165-degree internal temperature than eggs. For this reason, you should cook the bacon in the pan first. After your bacon is done, you should cook your eggs in the grease from the bacon in the same pan.
If there is too much grease in the pan, you can drain some into a container to save for later.
For scrambled eggs, you want about 2 tablespoons of bacon grease (enough to coat the bottom of the pan at least). For fried eggs, you want to at least cover the bottom, but you can use more since you will drain the eggs after you cook them.
If you would like to know exactly how to cook eggs in bacon grease, head on over to my article How To Cook Eggs And Bacon In The Same Pan
Is It Bad To Cook Eggs In Bacon Grease?
It is not bad or wrong to cook eggs in bacon grease. Eggs typically are cooked in some sort of fat (e.g., butter, oil, bacon fat) to reduce sticking to the pan and to add flavor.
All fats are high in calories, but fat is also a necessary part of a human’s diet (not necessarily fat from meat, I know, but fat is one of the three macronutrients we need).
Compared to butter, bacon fat has less saturated fat, less cholesterol, and more unsaturated fat (the good stuff!). Bacon fat does have slightly more calories (115 vs. 102 per tablespoon).
Related Content: Where Does Bacon Come From? What Part of The Pig?
Compared to oil, bacon does have slightly more saturated fat/less unsaturated fat and more sodium. Oil also does not contain cholesterol. The number of calories in the same amount of bacon fat and oil is equal.
So, if you are going to use fat for cooking your eggs, oil would be the “best” choice in terms of saturated versus unsaturated fat and cholesterol, but bacon fat is not a bad choice either. If you are going for flavor, in my opinion, you can’t beat bacon fat! It adds a smoky, salty flavor that you can’t get by cooking your eggs in oil.
Also, if you are asking this question, you are probably eating the bacon that you cooked to get the grease anyway, so using a small amount of the drippings is acceptable, again, in my opinion!
Do You Fry Eggs Or Bacon First?
I ALWAYS fry bacon before I cook eggs (if I’m making both), but in the same pan. I do this for two main reasons. 1. The bacon takes longer to cook and also holds its temperature longer than eggs. No one wants to eat cold eggs. 2. You will have the bacon grease in the pan ready to cook your eggs in, which adds flavor and prevents sticking.
Eggs Fried In Bacon Grease Calories
According to the USDA, one “Large” egg (per the USDA guidelines) fried in animal drippings (such as bacon grease) has 103 calories. This number includes the amount of calories added due to cooking the egg in fat. A raw egg of the same size contains about 70 calories, so cooking it in fat adds about 30 calories.
The information can be found on the USDA website here.
The number of calories in an egg fried in oil or butter is similar to the number of calories when cooked in bacon grease. An egg fried in oil is 105 calories, and an egg fried in butter is 99 calories.
Can You Use Bacon Grease To Cook Scrambled Eggs?
You can use bacon grease to cook scrambled eggs. It will add a smokey, salty flavor, and it will help prevent your eggs from sticking to the pan.
To cook your scrambled eggs in bacon grease, you will want to add enough bacon to at least cover the bottom of the pan (don’t add more than a tablespoon more than that, or you’ll have pretty greasy eggs.)
After you have your bacon grease medium-hot in the pan, add your whisked eggs to the pan and cook as usual.
Sunny Side Up Eggs In Bacon Grease
To cook sunny-side-up eggs in bacon grease, you should add (or keep) a generous amount of grease in the bottom of the pan. Crack your egg into the warm pan and allow the whites to begin to firm.
With a spoon, CAREFULLY scoop up some of the liquid fat and pour over the top of the egg (this is called basting). Basting will help the whites cook evenly, warm the yolk, and add flavor.
When the egg has a firm white but a soft yolk, lift the egg out of the pan with a slotted spatula. This will allow the excess grease to drain from your egg.
More Bacon Information
I’ve written a lot of information about bacon. If you are interested in seeing all my bacon-related articles, click here.
