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Liver and Onions with bacon- a liver recipe you will like
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Liver and Onions (with Bacon)

Katie WellsApr 16, 2013Updated: Mar 29, 2020
Reading Time: 3 min

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Wellness Mama » Blog » Recipes » Liver and Onions (with Bacon)

It turns out that after all the childhood fear and drama about organ meats, they are actually good for you. If you aren’t already eating liver, you should be!

The objection I get most often (including from my mother-in-law) is that liver is the filter organ, so it contains toxins from the body and is bad for you. Liver is a filter of sorts, but that is hardly the whole story. As Mark’s Daily Apple elaborates:

To call the liver a simple filter is incorrect. If we want to maintain the metaphor, it’s more like a chemical processing plant. The liver receives shipments, determines what they contain, and reacts accordingly. It converts protein to glucose, converts glucose to glycogen, manufactures triglycerides, among many other tasks, but its best-known responsibility is to render toxins inert and shuttle them out to be expelled – usually in the urine via the kidney. It doesn’t just hang on to toxins, as if the liver is somehow separate from the body and immune to contamination. The liver is part of the body! If your liver contains large amounts of toxins, so do you!

Okay, so we’ve established that the liver is a processing plant by design, rather than a physical filter whose express purpose is to accumulate toxins, but what about animals raised in industrial, intensive operations? The liver from a pasture-raised cow with a perpetually cud-filled maw can undoubtedly handle its relatively light toxic load; the liver from a CAFO-cow feeding on grain and exposed to environmental pollutants is surely another matter entirely. Right? Sorta, although it’s more complicated than that.

(read the rest here)

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From my research, as long as the liver is from a healthy source, it is a powerhouse of nutrients. (Note: We get liver from Grassfed Traditions and US Wellness Meats)

Why eat liver? WAPF sums it up well:

“Quite simply, it contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than any other food. In summary, liver provides:

  • An excellent source of high-quality protein
  • Nature’s most concentrated source of vitamin A
  • All the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
  • One of our best sources of folic acid
  • A highly usable form of iron
  • Trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium; liver is our best source of copper
  • An unidentified anti-fatigue factor
  • CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardio-vascular function
  • A good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA”

It also blows any other “superfood” out of the water on nutrient comparison. Don’t believe me? Check out this post.

Convinced? If you are new to offal, I suggest an easy recipe like this one to help get over any *ick* factor:

Liver and Onions with bacon- a liver recipe you will like

Liver and Onions (with Bacon) Recipe

Katie Wells
An incredibly nutrient dense and delicious liver and onions recipe topped with bacon (because bacon just makes everything better).
4.08 from 13 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 mins
Cook Time 50 mins
Total Time 50 mins
Course Main
Cuisine Offal
Servings 4 people
Calories 363 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 4 slices bacon
  • 1 lb beef liver (grass fed)
  • ⅓ cup coconut flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 2 medium onions
  • 2 TBSP butter (or coconut oil)
  • 2 TBSP water

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 325°F.
  • Brown the bacon in a skillet and reserve drippings.
  • Wash the liver and slice into thin (¼ to ½ inch) slices.
  • Rinse well and pat dry.
  • In a medium size bowl, mix together the coconut flour, salt, garlic powder, and pepper.
  • Grease the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish with the bacon drippings.
  • Dredge the liver slices in the coconut flour mixture and place in the baking dish.
  • Thinly slice the onions into rings and layer on top of the liver slices.
  • Cut butter in to small pats and place over sliced onions.
  • Add the water to the pan to keep all moisture from cooking off.
  • Place the pan in the oven and cook at least 30-40 minutes or until well cooked and onions are soft. It may take up to an hour depending on the thickness of the liver slices.
  • While the liver is cooking, crumble or cut the bacon into little pieces.
  • Remove the liver from the oven, sprinkle with bacon pieces, and enjoy!

Notes

If desired, you can sprinkle the onions with additional spices before adding the butter.

Nutrition

Serving: 2slicesCalories: 363kcalCarbohydrates: 16gProtein: 28gFat: 20gSaturated Fat: 9gCholesterol: 341mgSodium: 880mgPotassium: 488mgFiber: 4gSugar: 3gVitamin A: 19340IUVitamin C: 5.5mgCalcium: 18mgIron: 6mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

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Do you eat liver? Love it? Hate it? Share below!

Category: Beef Recipes, Recipes

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About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder of Wellness Mama and Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a wife and mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

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Reader Interactions

Discussion (34 Comments)

  1. ADRIAAN

    June 16, 2016 at 10:44 PM

    5 stars
    I PREFER TO USE LAMBS LIVER AS IT HAS NICE TEXTURE AND FLAVOUR.

    Reply
  2. Mary

    June 7, 2016 at 6:24 PM

    So is it not good to eat beef liver. People say to eat calves liver. I have cooked up beefs liver and onions and the texture is hard to handle. I tried soaking it in milk for an hour and it was still hard to eat. Any suggestions

    Reply
  3. Diana

    May 24, 2016 at 3:41 PM

    This recipe is delicious. I have never made liver and onions at home. Very simple to make and tasty. For me, the bacon is a must to help add flavor. Since I’m the only one who will eat this I have enough leftover for three more meals. Simply wonderful since I am AIP week 3.

    Reply
  4. sheila meadows

    December 13, 2015 at 7:16 PM

    I used to love my mum’s liver and bacon growing up. It had to be calves liver not beef liver. That is more tender and it is coated with flour. I now buy kosher calves liver and love it.

    Reply
  5. Jason

    December 4, 2015 at 12:52 AM

    I’ve been dehydrating and encapsulating our liver from last years cow, but realized a cows liver is BIG! It will take forever to go through all those liver pills! You may have just sold me on trying liver and onions! Here goes nothin’!

    Reply
  6. Linda Biggs

    December 3, 2015 at 7:22 PM

    4 stars
    Interesting about liver: When we lived in Amish country near Holmes County, Ohio. we bought our chicken off an amish farm where they were raised healthily, naturally. When they gave us the whole processed chickens they always presented with the liver, heart. etc. I would tell them to keep the organ meats because I did not use those parts. The farmer’s wife so wisely told us to compare the “baby’s tongue” color of their chicken livers against store bought ones. What a difference there was. I learned a lot from these fine folks.

    Reply
  7. Vanessa

    February 7, 2015 at 10:31 AM

    You say to wash the liver but I have heard in the past it’s not safe to wash off meat because things can splash off of it onto the counter or other things and cross contamination can occur. Please elaborate, thank you!:)

    Reply
    • Wellness Mama

      February 7, 2015 at 6:55 PM

      If you are concerned by the splashing, you could bathe it in a dish filled with water…

      Reply
    • mary

      March 9, 2015 at 3:01 PM

      no-wash is for chicken. Unless you have free range organic chicken, you might expect salmonella, thus the no-wash and cross-contamination caution. I have not heard anything about other meats requiring precaution, but you could google or check with USDA. But even with grocery store chicken, you could be careful, using the filled sink, no splashing.

      Reply
  8. Shianne

    January 7, 2015 at 11:00 AM

    What are some nice sides to go with this? (No potatoes or grain)

    Reply
  9. Cecilia

    December 12, 2014 at 2:39 PM

    5 stars
    tried it today with almond flour i/o coconut flour. So so yummy, my 2 year olds loves it 🙂

    Reply
  10. ShelbyF

    August 12, 2014 at 2:29 PM

    Hi Katie,
    First of all I LOVE your site. I am trying to help my family turn over to a healthy lifestyle. Still hitting some resistance (picky husband) but I would like to know if it is safe to give my baby some liver. She will be ready for some puréed food soon. The plan is to start with avocado, bone broths, and sweet potatoes. Is liver an ok choice too? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Wellness Mama

      August 12, 2014 at 3:23 PM

      Yes! It’s very rich, but it is also very good!

      Reply
      • gretchen l

        November 6, 2014 at 4:51 PM

        5 stars
        my grandma added cooking sherry and a pinch of brown sugar and 2 cloves of garlic to this onion bacon liver dish. if any was leftover it was ground into a pate for crackers. you can use this recipe for chicken liver pate also yum

        Reply
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