How to Render Lard

Nowadays, not many people render their own lard.  In fact, not many people use lard at all, and that's a shame.  Lard is an excellent cooking fat and makes anything you're frying crispier and tastier.  It makes sublime pastry and pie crusts--just ask any chef or baker.  But it has gotten a bad reputation, hasn't it?  People use the term "lard" in such a derogatory way.  I can assure you that bad reputation is completely unfounded.  Did you know that lard is about 45% monounsaturated fat, 39% saturated fat, and 16% polyunsaturated fat?  Not bad at all for an animal fat.

Here you see a few quarts of home-rendered lard.  It ranges in color from white to light beige depending on which part of the pig the fat comes from. (Yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition.)

I'm going to show you how to render a small amount of lard in your own home.  The procedure is different for a small amount than it is for doing several pigs at once.  Basically what you're trying to do is melt the fat out of its membranous enclosure and evaporate any liquid left in the raw state.  This will make your lard stable and easier to cook with.  It will give it a uniform texture with predictable results.  So let's get started, and later in the article I'll give you some more ideas about lard and some links to check out if you want to learn more about fats.

This is about 9.25 lb of lard.  When you order it from your butcher or farm, it is referred to as "leaf lard" even though it hasn't been rendered yet--at least that's what the old-timers always called it.  There are different parts of the pig with different-tasting fats.  The "leaf fat" is found around the kidneys and inside the loin.  This produces the blandest tasting, whitest lard and is highly prized by chefs and bakers for making pastry.  "Fat back" is the fat between the back skin and the muscle of the pig.  "Caul fat" surrounds the digestive organs.  Ideally you want to get leaf fat if you can.  I suggest you start with 5 lb as it's an easy amount to work with.

Make sure your knife is very sharp.  Cut the lard into small pieces no more than 3/4 inch in size.  You must do this manually and not in the food processor.  The food processor will destroy the membrane surrounding the fat, and we don't want that.  If you see any small pieces of meat or blood, just cut them out and discard.  On the right you can see all of the fat in a large stock pot.  Don't fill the pot more than half full of fat.  It took me about half an hour to cut up 9.25 lb.

Turn your heat on low and begin to warm the fat.  You want to melt a nice layer at the bottom without burning it.  The picture on the left shows the fat after 15 minutes on low temperature.  I've stirred it and you can see some of it has grayed in color just a bit, and a small amount has rendered out.  After 15 minutes, you can turn your heat up to medium low, but never higher than that.  Stir every five minutes or so.  The picture on the right shows the lard after 30 minutes.  You can see it's losing its pinkish color.

The picture on the left shows the lard after 45 minutes.  I stir every 5 minutes or so when I remember.  You can actually start to see some rendered out liquid fat coming up the side of the pan, and the pieces of fat are taking on a light tan color.  But now look at the photo on the right!  After 1 hour of cooking, a lot more liquid fat has rendered out, and look at all the bubbles.  It is sizzling away softly, and you will be able to hear it.  You may also see some steam escape as you stir now and then.  That's good.  You want to evaporate any watery fluid left in the fat.  Remember:  Your heat goes no higher than medium-low.

The picture on the left shows the fat after 1 hour and 15 minutes.  There are still bubbles but they are lessening somewhat.  At this point, I use a potato masher and carefully press the fat down to the bottom of the pan.  Be careful here because it may splash up a bit.  This helps to squeeze more fat and any hidden liquid out of the little pieces, which you'll notice have gotten smaller.  The picture on the right shows the fat after 1 hour and 30 minutes.  The bubbles are almost all gone.  The sizzling sound can barely be heard.  I used the potato masher one more time and pushed down hard just to make sure there was nothing left in the fat pieces.  There were hardly any bubbles or sound.  This lard is ready!

Place a steel colander in a steel pan.  Don't use plastic here because the fat is really hot.  Line the colander with several layers of cheesecloth.  I usually have the whole thing sitting right in my sink.  On the right you can see the cheesecloth in the colander with a generous amount hanging over all sides.

Pour the entire contents of the pan into the cheesecloth-lined colander (picture on the right--switched them by accident, oops).  Most of the liquid will flow directly through into the pan below the colander.  Carefully gather up all the edges of the cheesecloth.  (Use a glove if it feels too hot.)  Twist the top closed, and then use a potato masher to press down on all sides of the balled-up fat.  Keep pressing and pressing as much as you can, allowing the fat to flow through the cheesecloth, into the colander, and then into the pan below.

Open the cheesecloth.  You'll see some flattened out little things.  Do you know what those things are??  Yes, my dear, those are called cracklins.  Carefully dump them onto a platter lined with paper towels.  Be careful because they're still very hot.  Sprinkle some salt and pepper on them and stir.  Do this a few times until the cracklins are well seasoned.  Then go ahead . . . try one . . .  I'll bet you can't eat just one!  They are soooo delicious!!

But back to the lard, lol.  I keep clean canning jars with lids ready and waiting in a 250-degree oven while I'm making my lard.  This way I know they're sterilized.  I took the temperature of the lard at the very end before I turned the heat off and it was 309 degrees (Fahrenheit).  That's well above the 240 degrees needed to kill botulinum toxin and spores.  It's also well below the smoke point of lard, which is about 375 degrees.  My lard was at a perfect temperature.  That's why your heat must be fairly low throughout the entire process or you'll burn the lard and it will taste awful.  I ladle the lard into the hot jars and place hot lids and screwbands on them.  Then I set them aside.  They form a vacuum seal on their own.

The next day, you can see the lard has solidified and become a nice light beige color.  I always label and date my jars and then put them away.  If you use lard a lot, you can leave an opened jar near the stove.  If you're not going to use it a lot, any opened jar should go in the refrigerator.

But back to those cracklins . . . go ahead.  Try just one.  Try it.  :)  They're so yummy!  People usually descend on them and devour them.  Any leftovers should go in the fridge.  They're delicious the next morning in scrambled eggs.  Just throw a big handful right in.  You can also place some in a small pan and put on low heat to reheat and eat as a snack.  No need for any additional grease.  Sometimes I think I render lard just so I can have the cracklins!!

A word about the lard found in most supermarkets.  OMG.  Don't buy it.  That stuff is rendered down from the worst, stinkiest pig fat ever.  They bleach and deodorize it, and it still stinks.  They also hydrogenate it to make it more shelf stable, which creates trans fats.  Then they add chemicals to preserve it.  Don't buy it.  It's crap.

Yes, you can now buy real lard online.  It's about $10 or so per pound.  Now I bought that pig fat above for $1 per pound.  I rendered out 4 quarts and almost another pint.  Each quart weighs about 1.5+ pounds.  I probably got about 6.5 lb or 7 lb of lard for about $9.25.  It would probably cost me about $70 if I bought that much online (not counting shipping), but then I wouldn't get any cracklins!!  No way am I going to spend that much money for what I can do myself.

Okay, what happens if you have tried and tried and you simply can't get pig fat from a butcher or farm due to living in a city or elsewhere?  Are you doomed to using vegetable (seed) oils?  Not at all.  You can re-use your rendered fat from cooking bacon.  It will give anything you cook with it a delicious smoky-bacon taste.

Or you can render other fat.  The next time you buy ground beef from a store, buy the one with the highest fat content.  Cook your meat as usual, but cook it a little longer.  As you know, when you begin to cook hamburger, fat and liquid get rendered out.  What you want to do here is cook off all the liquid.  You'll see the steam rising as you cook and stir.  When the steam is completely gone and you hear good sizzling going on, remove the meat with a slotted spoon.  Then pour the grease into a cheesecloth-lined strainer over a bowl or jar.  Voila!  You have rendered tallow.  When it's rendered pig fat, it's called lard.  When it's rendered cow fat, it's called tallow.  You can store this bowl of tallow in the fridge and use it for your frying throughout the week.  I am always amazed when I see people cook their hamburger, drain it, and throw the fat out.  Then they go and pour more oil into a pan or use butter to fry something.  They just threw perfectly good and healthy grease out!!  Why waste money and resources by doing so?  It never makes sense to me.

As I said above, lard has unfortunately gotten a bad reputation--all saturated or partially saturated fats have gotten a bad reputation.  I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that those large "studies" that found saturated fat so bad for you were funded by the vegetable (seed) oil industry.  There were many level-headed researchers and doctors who were against maligning animal fats, but they were silenced.  See The Oiling of America for a very in depth look at exactly what happened to the view on fats in America.  It's a long article, but I promise you won't be bored.  And if you're still interested and want to know even more, read The Great Con-ola.  This is eye-opening stuff, folks.  I began to learn about all of this 15 years or so ago, and it changed my health and thinking for the better.