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Meals · Skillet & sheet-pan mains

Beef liver with crispy bacon

63

Thin slices of beef liver seared quickly in a little bacon fat and finished with butter, then scattered with crisp bacon. Cooked fast at a moderate heat, liver stays soft rather than chalky, and the salty bacon does the job onions usually do.

Time
25 min (10 prep + 15 cook)
Servings
3
Per serving
292 kcal
Protein
35 g

Ingredients

Steps

  1. Lay the bacon in a cold 12 inch skillet and set it over medium heat. Cook for 8–10 minutes, turning now and then, until crisp. Lift it onto paper towel, pour off all but about 1 teaspoon of the fat, and break the bacon into pieces.
  2. Pat the liver slices very dry with paper towel and salt them on both sides. Put the pan back over medium-high heat. Lay in the liver, in two batches if the pan is crowded, and leave it alone for 90 seconds, until browned underneath. Too much heat turns liver hard and chalky, so turn it down if the pan is smoking.
  3. Turn the slices, add the butter and cook 60–90 seconds more, spooning the butter over. Push the thermometer in from the side of the thickest slice: it should read 160°F. If it is short of that, give it 20–30 seconds more. A trace of pink at that temperature is fine.
  4. Lift the liver onto warm plates, spoon the pan butter over, and top with the bacon and the pepper. Eat right away: liver toughens as it sits.

Good to know

Can I make the flavor milder?

Soak the slices in milk in the fridge for 30 minutes before cooking, then discard the milk and pat them very dry. Calf's liver is milder still.

What if I am not strict carnivore?

A squeeze of lemon over the top at the end cuts the richness well.

How often can I eat liver?

Liver is very rich in vitamin A, so eat it now and then rather than often. If you are pregnant, avoid it.

Per

Calories
246
Protein
(48%)
29 g
Fat
(44%)
12 g
Carbohydrates
(8%)
5 g
of which sugar
<1 g
Fiber
<1 g
Sodium
625 mg

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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How

As written, 876 kcal goes into the pot and 358 g of ingredients comes out as about 356 g of food: 246 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.