Bacon Grease Is The Secret Ingredient For Flavorful Pie Crust

Learning how to make a homemade flaky pie crust is one of the best things you can do to set yourself up for baking success. Once you master how to effectively combine fat, flour, salt, and water into a cohesive dough, you can make a whole array of pies — including your basic fruit-filled ones, as well as savory chicken pot pies and quiches.

One of the hardest parts of the pie crust-making process is selecting a fat. While some recipes will go on and on about the merits of using butter or vegetable shortening, we're going to suggest an even better and more flavorful option: bacon grease. Bacon grease, which is solid at room temperature (so long as it's cool) will not only add a porky flavor to your pie crust, but it will help it come together with those incredible flaky layers you're craving.

You'll want to start this recipe by adding your rendered, cold bacon fat to the food processor with your flour and salt. Be sure to pulse it evenly so that there are small, grain-sized pieces of fat throughout. From there, you can slowly and incrementally (emphasis on incrementally, as you don't want to make the crust too wet) add your cold water. Once the water is mixed in, the batch can be rolled out, crimped, and latticed to your heart's content. 

There are tons of different types of pie that can be upgraded with bacon grease. The first one is an American classic: apple pie. Apples and bacon are in good company together because the subtle smoky flavor of the pie will mesh well with the floral flavor of the fruit. If you want to take this duo a step further, you may even consider baking a single-crusted pie and layering latticed bacon on top. It tastes heavenly, especially if it's served with a cool scoop of vanilla ice cream. You can also play around with chess pie. This Southern staple will satisfy your sweet tooth, and the addition of bacon in the crust will help add a bit of balance to the overwhelming sugariness. 

Alternatively, try to feed two birds with one scone by cooking up bacon for your breakfast quiche and reserving some of the grease to add to your pie crust. It's important to remember that your bacon has to be solidified and cool, so you may have to strategically plan out when you cook up your bacon so the fat is chilled enough to add to the crust.