These savoury brown butter bacon bites are perfect for anyone following a high-fat carnivore diet and combine two delicious carnivore treats – brown butter and bacon bits!
The recipe is simple and uses only two ingredients – bacon bits and butter, but the one extra thing you need for this recipe is patience. It takes a while to cook down the bacon bits to release its fat and crisp up the little pieces.
You then need even more patience to stand and stir the melted butter until it browns. But the results are worth it, and the brown butter bacon bites can be frozen in a zip-lock bag and taken out individually when you need one or two to go with your meal.
For the recipe, you will need the following:
About 300g of bacon bits
1 x 250g block of butter (salted or unsalted)
2 tablespoons of bacon grease reserved from cooking the bacon
You will also need some old fairy cake tins or something similar to form your bites. I used a couple of silicone moulds that I brought out of retirement from the back of a kitchen cupboard.
To make your brown butter bacon bites, fry the bacon pieces in a frying pan until they are cooked to your liking. I cooked mine until they were just turning crispy and brown to give the bites a little more intense bacon flavour.
I cooked them for another ten minutes or so from taking this photo, and the bacon bits gave off a lot more bacon grease – yum! Once the bacon bits are cooked to your liking, remove the pan from the heat and carefully scoop out a few at a time with a slotted spoon. Fill your moulds evenly with the bacon bits and then carefully pour the remaining bacon grease from the pan into a pyrex jug and set aside.
Put the frying pan back on the stove on medium-low heat and melt the block of butter. I sliced the block up to help it melt quicker. Stir the butter with a wooden or heat-proof spatula until the butter turns to a rich golden amber colour and the white milk solids in the bottom of the pan turn to a dark brown colour.
Once your butter has browned, turn off the heat and add about two tablespoons of the reserved bacon grease left over from cooking your bacon bits. Stir well and then carefully pour the brown butter mixture into a pyrex jug or a heat-proof bowl and leave to cool for a few minutes.
Stir the cooled brown butter well and use a tablespoon to add spoonfuls of butter to the moulds containing the bacon bits. Make sure you stir and scoop up plenty of the brown bits from the bottom of the jug as they tend to settle at the bottom.
Once you have filled your moulds, leave the butter bites to cool to room temperature before moving them to the fridge to set them properly. You can also place the moulds into the freezer to speed things up.
Once the brown butter bacon bites have set solid, you can gently pop them out and put them into a zip-lock bag. Keep them in the freezer, and remember to let them thaw before eating.
I would have to say that these brown butter bites are much more substantial, with a chewy texture that sets them apart from regular brown butter bites. If you like brown butter bites, don’t expect them to taste the same. I find them a more interesting way to get in plenty of healthy fat on the carnivore diet.
UK Carnivore Club 