Making lard is easy and there is NOTHING that makes a better pie crust than lard. Plus shock of shocks ... lard is a heart healthy fat just like avocado or olive oil. All lard is, is slow melted pig fat. Here's how to make it.
Skip right to the printable tutorial.
Hey, you know that thing you thought about lard being bad for you? Well it isn't. So you can just file that thought away with your previous thoughts on eggs, wine, chocolate, coffee, and red meat being bad for you. I give it a year before we find out stabbing yourself in the eye isn't bad for you either.
It seems scientists had jumped to the wrong conclusion about lard many years ago. The theory was animal fats were bad for you and plant fats were good for you. Think Olive Oil and Avocado Oil, the darlings of the fat world. They're good for you, have high smoking points and are heart healthy.
Well guess what. Turns out lard is that type of fat too. Ergo, lard is good for you. Scientists have recently taken a big backtrack on their analysis of it being bad for you because it's high in the heart healthy monounsaturated fat.
Lard is now seen as a fat that's good for you. But there's a catch. It should be homemade lard.
Grocery store lard has preservatives BHA and BHT added to it so it has a longer shelf life. Those 2 preservatives are thought to be bad for you. But hey ... that's this week, right?
Luckily homemade lard is stupid easy to make.
HOW TO MAKE LARD
Ingredients:
Leaf lard (your butcher will know what this is)
Steps:
Step 1: Dice the fat into small pieces or (even better) put it through a grinder.
Step 2: Place the fat into a slow cooker along with ¼ cup of water.
Step 3: Slow cook on low/medium until all the fat has melted. If it sticks add a bit more water. This will take several hours.
Step 4: Strain the fat into a jar. I don't like cheesecloth for this because it soaks up too much of the precious lard. I prefer a very fine mesh strainer.
Step 5: Store the lard in your fridge.
IDEA: Lard makes the world's best pie crust and pumpkin makes the world's best pie. And if you're going to make pumpkin pie, make it with real pumpkin.
1. Why leaf lard? Because it's the cleanest and softest fat on the pig which has no "piggy" smell or taste once rendered. It's gathered from around the kidneys of the pig. Fat from pasture raised pork is the best because you are what you eat. And so is the pig.
Where to find leaf lard? You can get it from a farmer's market or butcher shop.
Murray Thunberg, owner of Murry's Farm in Cambridge, Ontario which produces pasture raised heritage breed pork, firmly believes fat from his pigs (which is what I used) is especially good because his pigs are not only pasture raised but they aren't given any corn or soy products in their diet at all. I asked him what he thought of leaf fat as being the premium fat for rendering and he laughingly said he can't tell the difference between lard rendered from leaf fat or other fat. It all tastes good.
2. To dice, grind or grate? Lard takes a long time to render and it HAS to be done at a slow temperature otherwise it'll brown. The smaller your lard bits are the better it will render. No matter how you get your fat ready (dicing, grinding or grating) it'll all be easier if you're working with refrigerated fat that's easier to grate and slice because it's firmed up. Room temperature fat is soft, wiggly and harder to work with.
BEST - Grinding
2nd BEST - Grating or finely chopping in a food processor
3rd BEST - Dicing. It will still work, as I've shown in this post, but it's the most time consuming and least effective for getting the most out of your fat.
I also should invest in an actual Crock Pot (or any slow cooker) as opposed to this Instant Pot which I have very unfriendly feelings towards. You can read my unfriendly review of the Instant Pot here.
3. Why the water? Adding a bit of water just helps to stop the fat from burning/browning.
4. How to store it? There are a LOT of differing opinions on this on the Internet so take my advice with a few words of caution: I'm no expert. But I store my lard in the refrigerator.
I'm gonna say you could probably just store it on the counter being that fat is a natural preservative AND lard has more saturated fats in it than vegetable/seed oils so it stores longer without fear of going rancid. Also I think we've all become a little crazy when it comes to the fear of getting sick and dying from food.
How to Make Lard.
Lard not only isn't bad for you, it's full of heart healthy fats!
Good for you for making some yourself!
Materials
- Leaf lard
- Water
Tools
- Slow cooker
Instructions
- Dice the fat into small pieces or (even better) put it through a grinder.
- Place the fat into a slow cooker along with ¼ cup of water.
- Slow cook on low/medium until all the fat has melted. If it sticks add a bit more water. This will take several hours.
- Strain the fat into a jar. I don't like cheesecloth for this because it soaks up too much of the precious lard. I prefer a very fine mesh strainer.
- Store the lard in your fridge.
Notes
Leaf lard is supposed to give you a clean, almost sweet flavour for your rendered lard so try and get that if you can. It will have no pork flavor. If your butcher doesn't have it, ask for the cleanest fat they have for rendering into lard.
Cubing the fat works, but if you have a meat grinder, ground lard will render more quickly and evenly.
Perfectly clean lard will store well at room temperature, but I store it in the fridge just to be extra safe. Also, I use it mostly for pie crusts and I want the lard to be cold for that anyway.
For now, with the jar that I have, it's going to be used for a deep dish cigarette pie. Because didn't you hear? Those are good for you now too.
Just kidding. Cigarette pies have an aftertaste. Blueberry pie it is.
Should fat from different animals be separated and made into different lard batches? Any taste or implications from mixing chicken with beef?
And those with reactions to high fat food, is lard alright for you in baking? The hubs is sensitive to any fat left on a pork chop, so I'm reluctant to feed him a pie with lard in the crust. I may love it and have no reaction, but his stomach won't.
Or this is yet another way to make sure the baked goods are left just for me :D
My neck of the woods is in Florida - rural NW central FL but with a Super Walmart that helped to close the couple of grocery stores we had (with butchers). We have to drive over an hour to the closest Publix into Gainesville (go Gators) to find a butcher. I've asked them before and they say they only have certain cuts of beef to "butcher" so no bones, etc. Publix is a great grocery store but just wouldn't survive out here in the boondocks where lots of people still raise and butcher their own meat.
I just brought home two American Guinea Hogs last week. They're going to give us a lot of lard. I'm so excited!
I got the healthy memo on lard about 7 years ago when we raised our first pig. I bought Lard: the lost art of cooking with your grandmother's secret ingredient (from the editors of Grit magazine). If you love making it old school, give it a look.
Homemade food products = good, but mucho work (or expensive).
Factory/commercial made food = bad, but convenient.
There, I just solved the 'what is bad vs. good for you' problem.
Funny part is, i think we all intuitively know this. We might eat Doritos and the like anyway, but we all seem to know this fundamental rule, but somehow chooe to ignore it? For some reason scientists have to spend all this extra time and effort to prove it to us, but it seems silly. (And i know... Scientific Method: Question, Research, Hypothesize, Experiment, Analysis/Conclusion, Result and all - it just seems .... ironic).
Lardy, lardy... Excellent post Karen. Make my own lard, eat butter, put whipping cream in my coffee and on my steel cut oats (with raisins and a touch of maple syrup)
The best book I've read on this topic is The Great Cholesterol Myth by Bowden & Sinatra (not Frank :-)
Science has proven there is no link between dietary cholesterol and blood serum cholesterol... and it has certainly been true for me... I'm seventy-two and weigh 172 (5'9" tall). Have very low cholesterol, take no meds, pop out of bed every morning... and see my homeopath once a month - she's amazing.
There's a really good blogger's summary of the book in the website link.
You, my dear lady are awesome!!!!!!!
I assume you're referring to Karen... I hope??? LOL
So where the heck did that link go that I put in the Website URL box???
Dumb machine... here... https://www.terrytalksnutrition.com
Leaf lard definitely is best for pastries etc, no flavor, where the other fat does.
I have a guy who raises chickens, 100% free range and organic, and the eggs are superior, (as you well know!) and he branched out into heritage Berkshire pigs. When the cut sheet came out people were pretty grossed out that I said yes please to the lard... fools.
I'm gonna get an order of both and see if I can tell the difference. Like I said, Murray - who raises the heritage pork - says he can't tell the difference at all, so now I'm curious. ~ karen!
And that explains it.
Yep. ~ karen!
I can't wait for carbfest 2017: pizza, quiche and lemon tarts.
Oregano apparently still has your donkey milk moisturizer.... thought I raised her good... sheesh...she PROMISED to mail this week... 🙄
She will never mail it. She's used it. You know that right? It no longer exists. :) ~ karen!
She is a bit of an ass.
LOL! ~ k!
Donkey milk moisturizer...I was just in Québec City and saw a store of that stuff. I had never heard of it. What is it all about??
Ooooh! Curious if it's a Korean import? It's a K-beauty moisturizer that I found here in Singapore. I got Karen an Asian care package ages ago that my eldest daughter promised to send from Toronto...
The sign on the store said it was a product of Charlevoix. I'm not sure where that is. Sounded like it was in Québec to me.
donkey milk... isn't that what Cleopatra used to bath in? yeah, I think it is. they sell that now? that's awesome. imma gonna google that.
I'm going to google THAT! I didn't know that she did that...
We've been making our own lard for years. My favorite use for it is cookies. Those big soft oatmeal cookies - lard. Even bakeries use lard in them. And they're way easier to whip up than a pie.
I'm working on being more farm-y, but I don't know if I can go so far as to use pig fat in a fruit pie. You are straight up legit.
Lard was the only thing our mothers and grandmothers had for baking...
:) You really can't taste it at all Renae. Cross my heart. ~ karen!
My neighbour and I bought a hog last year lovingly raised on a local farm. We finally rendered the fat into lard last fall. All of it. All the beautiful fat from that yummy hog. We got about 20 lbs of lard. 20 lbs!!! I started given it to foodie friends as hostess gifts! Anyhow, it does have a different flavour and some people think it is too strong... so I cut it half and half with butter in my pastry. Perfect for all pies (even fruit.) Only 9 lbs left to go....
Why is my giant head in this reply? 😂
that calls for a steak and kidney pudding
Can beef far be used? I'm not crazy about the smell of pork fat cooking, although I realize that's hotter than rendering. I've used store bought lard to make shortbread and biscuits (as an experiment) and honestly couldn't really say they were better or much different than those made with Crisco. Course everybody knows that frying in lard is what used to make McDonald's french fries better than the competition's, but the food police pressured them into changing that how many years ago?
read that "beef FAT" LOL
Hi Jan! Beef fat is tallow and to be perfectly honest with you I haven't researched it like I have lard. Mainly because it isn't commonly used in pie crusts or for frying. It *can* be used for both those things but normally isn't so my hunch is it isn't as clean tasting (no taste) as lard. ~ karen!
I remember going to a nearby town to McDonalds (that was when there wasn't a McDonalds on every corner -- or even in every town) just to get those french fries. Everyone knew that there were no better fries in the world. But that was when they started out, and deep-fried them in a mixture of beef and pig fat. When they changed the recipe in response to people freaking out about lard, the fries were never the same. I wouldn't walk across the street for them now. Now I want to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes.
Real lard makes excellent flour tortillas, too. Yummmm. My grandmother always rendered fat from chickens, geese, and ducks and it made fabulous pastries like danish rolls and kolaches.
Got a big bag of fat in my freezer waiting to be rendered...thanks for reminding me! AND thanks for reminding me and others like us that it's totally acceptable (maybe even cool) to have your own lard and raise your own chickens etc. in a world where most people turn their noses up at this stuff. By the way, I have always saved bacon grease to fry eggs (and other stuff) in. It's the newest trick for chefs to make eggs taste great-DUH!
My dear friend always sends me a few cans of confit de canard at Xmas time and I save all the goose grease to use in cooking. There's nothing better!
potatoes cooked in bacon fat=a little slice of heaven
This sounds like something I can do! LoL.
Homemade soap?!? Also interesting.
I was told a few weeks ago that splinters are now good for you because they kick start your immune system. So, next time you feel a cold or the flu coming on go play with rough wood.....?
OMGosh!!
Totally just wrote that and posted it.
What I mean is go get some splinters from a piece of board that isn't sanded smooth. To kick start your immune system.
....or not. Its just a theory. ...and now I'm babbling because I'm embarrassed.
Um, Gilly Bean? WHAT are you embarrassed about???? :0
Hilarious! a good middle of the night guffaw.
Oh.....this is too funny!
Hahaha ... I'm slow - now I get it
Ha!!! ~ karen!
Oh yes! I have rendered lard like this often! Putting it through the grinder does make it much easier to separate those odd little bits. Makes lovely pure white lard, or tallow as well.
TIP: Those old polyester shear curtains make great repurposed mesh strainers (for many things). This lard is WONDERFUL for making your own soap - I dare you!
What's the difference between tallow and lard?
Lard is from pigs. Tallow is rendered from beef fat but to specifically be called tallow it must be rendered from the fat around the kidneys. Tallow is a very hard fat and actually makes the finest soap, lard is a softer fat but still makes a nice soap.
Yes, that's right. Some love the use of tallow for frying as it can withstand higher temperatures. Our beloved 'Hutches' Fish and Chips uses tallow for the frying. They have been around since 1946. Tallow is also great in soap but too much and it gets so hard that it shatters if dropped in the shower. Might have been that I had rendered grass-fed beef leaf fat. It ends so pure white, shiny and hard like white chocolate.
You'll catch yourself showing it off to people...
As we segue into another area for Karen to explore - hand made toiletries...
She can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan and make face cream and soap with the dripping!
You listening girl? In your spare time of course.
Ha! I can get it crazy cheap around this parts at any butcher shop!
Crazy Mexicans. Selling pig fat for cheap. ;) Try it! It makes a stunning pastry. I've already turned mine into a leek quiche and little lemon curd tarts which I can't stop eating. I'm thinking I might have to do a post on them. ~ karen!
Oh yes, please! I love lemon tarts! However be advised I'm diabetic so I'll have to adapt it to use Splenda.
I used lard eons ago when we had our own pigs BUT pies and biscuits will never, in the history of ever, be that good again. Until I make my own again. Thanks for this lesson. My crock pot was broken but I now have a reason to replace it. Pie! Pie! I love pie. tender, flaky, completely cooked on the bottom, pie. One question - can you solve the mystery of disappearing butchers? Here in my neck of the woods, they don't make butchers anymore. It's all prepackaged. I can't even get soup bones or bones of any kind, even for the dog. No mystery I bet - just money.
OH! I have no idea. Around here there are plenty of butchers. Even the regular grocery stores have them. Just last week I didn't notice a blade roast in the meat counter at the grocery store and rang the buzzer for the bank of the meat department and asked the butcher for a blade roast. He asked how big I wanted it, went back and cut it for me. :/ Where is your neck of the woods? ~ karen!
Ah, Karen; you have the glorious Fortinos in your 'hood. You have no idea how I miss them! Here in Nova Scotia we have a few small butchers in the city who sell grass fed meat, but the supermarkets are packages all the way. No sides of beef hanging in the back. I always visit Fortino's when I'm back up visiting in Upper Canada :)
Yes to the lemon curd tarts. Hate the name - curd, yuk. But LOVE them anyway. Little ones make it easier to eat the whole batch since you only have one at each "break" lol.
Snort, not pig, human. *-*
"hearth healthy"?
LOL. I'll go check on that. ~karen!
This looks good, I think I will give it a whirl. Did you use your Instant Pot?
I did. I'll let you know how it did in the Instant Pot review in a couple of weeks. ~ karen!