Firstly of each month, I make a contemporary batch of lard. I swing by my native butcher store and lug dwelling baggage of leaf lard, the ropey-looking part of pork fats that adheres to the pig’s kidney and loins. In its uncooked state, leaf lard is hard, opaque, and albeit not that interesting to take a look at or contact. However render it in a pan over medium-low warmth for an hour or in a pot within the oven for a number of hours, and it slowly turns into a shiny liquid with a faintly candy and irresistibly savory aroma.

Lard, rendered pig fats, seems in virtually all of my favourite meals: My native taqueria makes use of it to cook dinner their meats, making them further savory. I slip it into peanut butter noodles instead of oil or butter for extra creaminess, stir it into my deep-frying oil for crispier outcomes, or fold it into pie dough for a flakier crust. Conventional mooncake recipes virtually at all times name for lard—certainly, it’s the fats most Chinese language bakeries flip to for its lip-smacking taste, the way in which it crisps and tenderizes pastries, and since it helps make full use of the pig. Should you’re new to cooking with lard, you would possibly assume it provides a porky, savory observe to every little thing it touches. Relying on the batch, lard’s taste can vary from distinctly meaty to impartial and all-but flavorless, which is why I exploit it in each savory and dessert recipes

Rendered lard can come from a number of elements of the pig. Leaf lard is very prized and produces the whitest, most neutral-tasting fats, making it ideally suited for baked items, corresponding to pies, cookies, breads (together with conchas), and mooncakes. Nonetheless, its yields are small: Every pig has only one to 2 kilos of leaf lard, in comparison with 5 to 10 kilos of fatback. Fatback, discovered slightly below the pores and skin, is smoother, however can comprise strips of meat that render right into a extra savory fats. Pork stomach fats may also be rendered, however as a result of it incorporates extra meat and connective tissue, it tends to brown and char, giving the lard a meatier taste.

From Prized to Vilified and Again Once more 

Breana Lai Killeen, an affiliate editorial director at Meals & Wine and a registered dietitian, can be a fan of lard. At her Vermont farm, the place she sells lard, she’s seen a renewed curiosity within the fats. Clients continuously inform her they recognize its gentle taste and lots of makes use of. Not like delicate frying oils, corresponding to sesame oil, lard is steady at excessive warmth (374°F/190°C). Cooking with lard additionally connects lots of her clients to an extended custom of whole-animal cooking in lots of cultures. “A part of this comes from the broader nose-to-tail and sustainability actions, the place persons are extra conscious of lowering meals waste,” she says. “Why throw away one thing so versatile?”

Not way back, lard was vilified for its saturated fats content material, particularly through the low-fat weight loss plan craze of the latter half of the twentieth century, when any animal fats was deemed unhealthy. However vitamin science has since shifted the dialog. “Individuals nonetheless confuse pure saturated fat with synthetic trans fat,” Killeen says. (The US banned synthetic trans fat—created by hydrogenating vegetable oils to make them strong and shelf-stable—in 2015, and the ban went into impact in 2018. In distinction, small quantities of pure trans fat happen within the meat and dairy of ruminant animals, however they’re structurally completely different and never thought of as dangerous as synthetic ones.)

“Rendered lard, particularly from pasture-raised animals, just isn’t hydrogenated like outdated industrial shortenings had been,” Killeen explains. “It incorporates a mixture of monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fat and, in actual fact, has extra monounsaturated fats and fewer saturated fats than butter does.” 

How Cooks and Dwelling Cooks Use Lard in Their Cooking

Lard is commonly utilized in conventional Chinese language, Mexican, and British pastry recipes. Although butter is commonly really useful as a handy substitute in these recipes, the 2 fat are usually not interchangeable. They differ in each taste and composition: Leaf lard is 100% fats and has a impartial taste, whereas butter often incorporates about 20% water and has a distinctly creamy style. Butter melts sooner than lard, softening round 58 and 69°F (14 to twenty°C). In the meantime, lard has a melting level of round 95° and 118°F (35 to 48°C), which suggests it would not soften as rapidly whilst you deal with it.

Severe Eats contributor Tim Chin examined lard towards butter whereas growing his recipe for daan tat, Hong Kong–model egg tarts. Although he finally most well-liked butter’s taste, he seen a marked distinction in texture whereas utilizing lard: “After evaluating the lard-dough technique to a extra conventional puff pastry method (and even quick-puff strategies), I did discover that the lard dough was extra tender, and the layers extra delicate when baked.” The trade-off between the flavour of butter and the superior texture imparted by lard is one many bakers settle for, which is why pastry and different baked good recipes usually name for a mix of the 2 fat: butter for taste and lard for a crisp, delicate texture.

At Killeen’s farmstand, the place she makes and sells her personal lard, her clients eagerly snap up jars of it to make pies and gingerbread, fry rooster, and even bake biscuits—simply as many bakers within the South, together with the late famed cookbook creator Edna Lewis, have lengthy executed.

After all, I don’t at all times have time to render my very own lard. Luckily, you possibly can usually discover it at farmers markets or in Mexican and Dominican grocery shops. It is also offered by firms corresponding to Fatworks and Møsabi, a San Francisco–based mostly firm specializing in leaf lard. On its web site, Møsabi notes: “Leaf lard can be the equal of butter in Chinese language delicacies, prized for its capability so as to add wealthy, savory depth to wok stir-fries and sautéed greens.”

Fortunately for me, my favourite taqueria, Taqueria Ramirez in Brooklyn, New York, sells half-liter jars of lard. Co-owner Giovanni Cervantes makes no secret of lard’s significance in his kitchen. Below the store’s hand-scribbled menu of pastor (roasted pork butt), longaniza (spiced floor pork just like chorizo), and nopales (cactus) tacos, a observe reads: All could comprise lard.

For Cervantes, this ingredient is foundational to Mexican cooking and deeply nostalgic, evoking recollections of the taquerias he grew up with in Mexico Metropolis. Since opening the store in 2021, Cervantes and his workers have nurtured a “mom lard” within the kitchen, not not like a bakery’s sourdough starter. On daily basis, the lard is loosened with an equal quantity of water to create a flavorful braise for the day’s meats. That water evaporates over the course of a number of hours, and on the finish of the day, cooks filter the remaining fats via a fine-mesh sieve and retailer it in a cool, darkish place till it is used the subsequent day. 

Taqueria Ramirez’s lard, sourced initially from Casablanca Meat Market in East Harlem, had a pointy and salty taste to start with. However as soon as the restaurant started including fats from cooking longaniza, pastor, and different meats to the bottom fats, its taste deepened and took on the savory complexity of dry-aged meat. This lard takes a bit extra effort to protect than the freshly rendered sort—cooks must pressure out solids to reduce the danger of spoilage—however sustaining the mom lard is crucial to the store.

“Should you maintain the lard going all through the years, it turns into the id of your meals,” he says. “It is generational [in Mexico], too. In case your grandpa dies, they offer you their lard.” The taqueria’s lard is not unique to the restaurant, both. At dwelling, Cervantes and his spouse use the mom lard to pan-fry rooster wings, scramble eggs, and crisp up tortillas for huevos rancheros and tacos.

Like Killeen and Cervantes, lard is an important a part of my kitchen. Every jar jogs my memory of the time spent rendering fats on the range, and that taste elevates each conventional dishes and new experiments. Making my very own lard is a comparatively new ritual, and one I look ahead to initially of every month.

September 2025