Ah, potato soup – yes, even including the bacon grease (as opposed to rendered lard) – is my “go to” soup when I need something warm, comforting and delicious for dinner at a moment’s notice. This soup is also a great way to get loads of healthy fats into your friends and family without them even knowing what is happening!
Some of you may gasp about the several ounces of bacon grease included in this recipe. There is a perpetual myth in our culture that bacon is somehow bad for us and that bacon grease is the worst of the worst. On the contrary, bacon grease is a very healthy, traditional fat particularly when it comes from pastured animals that have access to fresh air and sunshine.
Bacon grease is loaded with Vitamin D when the pigs are allowed to run around outside! Considering that 90% of people are vitamin D deficient in the USA alone, need I say more?
The parent of one of the kids in my child’s class told me on a field trip recently that his mother used to drink a small glass of bacon grease every morning with breakfast. He indicated with facial expressions how gross this was to him, but my question back was, “Uh, and how old did she live to be?”   The answer was somewhere in the 90’s range (I’ll bet she wasn’t overweight or dropped dead of a heart attack either).
Case closed on the bacon grease!
This soup is so delicious, you won’t believe it and it’s the bacon grease that makes all the difference to the amazing flavor! When a whole food has this much amazing flavor naturally, this means loads of nutrition, so eat up and enjoy!
Potato and Bacon Soup (made using ALL the bacon grease)
makes about 3 quarts of soup
Ingredients
2 quarts homemade chicken stock (where to find)
6 organic, medium sized Yukon Gold potatoes
2 large organic, white onions
3 Tbl grassfed butter (where to find)
8 thick slices pastured bacon, broiled with bacon grease reserved
Sea salt to taste
Instructions
Bring chicken stock to a boil in a large pot. Add sliced potatoes and simmer. Meanwhile, chop onions and saute in butter until caramelized and broil the bacon in a baking dish in the oven until crispy, turning every few minutes as necessary.
Add the caramelized onions to the simmering chicken stock and potatoes. Pour all the bacon grease into the chicken stock mixture once the bacon is done. Once the bacon has cooled (just a few minutes), crumble into small pieces and add to the chicken stock mixture.
Puree with a handheld blender. Add sea salt to taste.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Lard is the general name for pig fat (see my video on how to render it). Bacon grease is the lard that is left from cooking bacon.
Also, lard is pretty flavorless, that is why it is used in baking for cakes and such. Bacon grease will have yummy, but strong smoky salty flavor.
Hi Sarah
Can I ask what is the difference between lard and bacon grease.
Thank you as always
I am not Jewish, but I am a bit skeptical of this appraisal on the quality of pig fat. Pigs have only one stomach, and so whatever a pig eats will go through much less digestion and processing than ruminants (cows, goats, deer) which have 3-4 stomachs. Given what pigs eat, which can be pretty much ANYTHING (including their own young), one can only assume that when the swine flesh is eaten these less-digested ‘foods’ are also eaten second-hand.
Okinawans (Japan) are one of the cultures with the greatest longevity on earth and they rely on pork as one of their main meats/fats. It’s all about the quality of where you source your pork. Just because some pork is raised in a gross, dirty manner does not make all pork bad. Just find a farmer who does it right.
I see. Still, I personally don’t like the idea of eating any part of the swine unless I myself, or maybe the Okinawans, raised them.
Indeed – quality is very very important.
We used to make a soup like this all the time, except we added cream at the end. It is so delicious! I’m certainly not shy with the bacon fat, and luckily my husband is catching on that it’s not bad for you like we’ve always been told. Our go-to dinner to make when we’re super busy or out of groceries is bacon and farm fresh eggs – so delicious and nourishing and SIMPLE!! I never get tired of it.
Oh Sarah count me in on the bacon fat lovers! I fry all sorts of things in it – yum! I have never added it to soup though – I can’t wait to taste this!
I love that you blow these myths out of the water. Besides if I can feel good about eating more bacon, that’s a good thing. Bring on the soup!
Yum! I’m salivating reading this! We use bacon grease all the time. In fact, I used it last night when I was making pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. One of the kids came in and said, “Mom, that smells good!”
One of my favorite side dishes is kale and onions sauteed in bacon grease with salt and pepper.
I love this type of soup. I can’t wait to make it again!
Oh MY! Another one bites the dust!! (You know..a myth that something is BAD for you!) Why did we wait so long to find these things out, when we knew in our hearts that our great grandparents were AMAZINGLY wise?! Especially about natural, real food! Thanks again Sarah for being fearless in taking on the status quo and the POLITICALLY CORRECT! Ha! You have made my day! (And possibly my mother in law’s!) My Granddaddy in law lived to be 96 and active on a diet that our culture would find shocking!! He was moderate in all things and loved GOD! Oh, it is so freeing to know these things!!! Thank you and God bless! Evelyn
All of my grandparents lived well into their 90’s, and my Mom and Dad were well into their 80’s. We ate pastured meats of all kinds because I grew up on a farm. My Dad’s side of the family was Swedish and my Mom’s side was German. When my Mom’s parents would come for a visit, my Gramma would make a German dish called Knoephla (us kids just called them neffles!) which was basically just water, potatoes, onions, salt and pepper boiled up until the potatoes were soft. Of course more water was added to make it soupier. Then she made a dough of just flour and water and salt, kneaded and stiff until she could hold it in her hand, and she cut small hunks off the dough and let it drop into the boiling “potato / onion” soup. Then she added a big dollop of bacon grease to a frying pan and after the dough was cooked into a sort of noodle type thing, she’d fish out the “noodles” and a few potatoes and onions and fry them in the hot bacon grease. It was outstandingly delicious. Of course we also added bacon grease to the soup and ate that, as well. My siblings and I took any left over fried noodle/dough along with us to the movies and ate it like popcorn because they were so good and such a treat for us. There usually wasn’t much left over so sometimes Gram would have to make up an extra batch. She did nothing but cook when they came to visit, but I think it was a true labor of love for her. I never heard her complain and she would beam watching us snarf it down.
There’s about a hundred different ways to spell knoephla (because it’s a German word and there’s high and low German, yada yada) but you could try to locate a recipe online if you wish. Every recipe I’ve ever seen, though, is different to some degree. I never use chicken broth when I make this because it takes away from the original flavor of the recipe, but I suppose you could do it that way.
try looking for Knöpfle, Knoepfle, or also Spätzle, Spaetzle, which are basically the same thing (and those are the “official” high german names, low german and regional dialects are generally not written languages, so if you search online you’ll have to search in high german$). The term refers to the noodles themselves, the accompanying soup and fry up is either your Gramma’s recipe, or a regional way of using the Knoepfle, but either way it sounds delicious.
Where I’m from, we usually fry them up with caramelized onion and then put a layer of cheese over top and broil them. Some people also add potato chunks to the noodles first.