Homemade Beef Tallow

Beef tallow is rendered beef fat that has been used for centuries in cooking, baking, and even skincare. It produces the crispiest french fries, the flakiest pie crusts, and adds incredible depth of flavor to everything it touches. Making your own beef tallow at home is simple, affordable, and gives you a shelf-stable cooking fat that outperforms most oils in both flavor and heat tolerance.

Why You will Love This Recipe

Incredibly easy to make with just one ingredient

Produces the crispiest fried foods you have ever tasted

Shelf-stable for months at room temperature or up to a year in the fridge

A budget-friendly way to use beef fat trimmings that would otherwise go to waste

High smoke point of 400 degrees makes it perfect for frying and searing

Recipe Details

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 3 to 4 hours

Total Time: 4 hours

Yield: About 2 cups of rendered tallow

Ingredients

2 pounds beef suet or beef fat trimmings (ask your butcher)

1/4 cup water

Equipment Needed

Large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven

Fine mesh strainer

Cheesecloth or coffee filters

Glass mason jars for storage

Instructions

Start by trimming away any meat or connective tissue from the beef fat. Cut the fat into small, uniform pieces about half an inch in size. The smaller the pieces, the faster and more completely the fat will render. You can also ask your butcher to grind the suet for you, which speeds up the process significantly.

Place the chopped fat into a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven. Add the quarter cup of water to the pot. The water helps prevent the fat from burning before it starts to melt and will evaporate completely during the rendering process.

Set the heat to the lowest possible setting on your stove. You want the fat to melt very slowly and gently. Stir occasionally every 20 to 30 minutes. The fat will slowly liquify and you will see small crispy bits called cracklings floating in the liquid gold.

Continue rendering for 3 to 4 hours until the cracklings have turned golden brown and sunk to the bottom. The liquid should be clear and golden. If it starts to smell burnt or the cracklings are turning dark brown, your heat is too high.

Remove the pot from heat and let it cool for about 10 minutes. Line a fine mesh strainer with cheesecloth or a coffee filter and carefully pour the liquid tallow through it into clean glass mason jars. Discard the cracklings or season them with salt for a crispy snack.

Allow the tallow to cool completely at room temperature. It will solidify into a creamy white or pale yellow solid. Seal the jars tightly and store at room temperature for up to 3 months, in the refrigerator for up to a year, or in the freezer indefinitely.

Kelvin Tips

Beef suet, the hard fat around the kidneys, produces the cleanest and whitest tallow. Regular fat trimmings work fine but may have a slightly more beefy flavor and slightly yellow color.

Low and slow is the key to perfect tallow. Rushing the process with higher heat will give you a darker, stronger-tasting tallow. Patience pays off here.

For an even easier hands-off method, you can render tallow in a slow cooker on the low setting for 8 to 10 hours or in the oven at 250 degrees for 4 to 5 hours.

If your finished tallow has a beefy smell and you prefer a more neutral flavor, you can re-render it by melting it again with a quarter cup of water and straining a second time. This double-rendering produces a very clean, mild tallow.

Use beef tallow for frying french fries, searing steaks, roasting vegetables, making pie crusts, or even as a base for homemade soap and skin balm.

Nutrition Facts (per tablespoon)

Calories: 115

Protein: 0g

Fat: 13g

Carbohydrates: 0g

Fiber: 0g

Sodium: 0mg