Beef tallow is rendered beef fat - the same product that was standard in commercial fryers and home kitchens for most of the 20th century before being displaced by vegetable oils in the 1970s and 1980s. It is back, and with good reason.
What Is Beef Tallow
Tallow is beef fat that has been slow-rendered to remove water and impurities, producing a pure, shelf-stable fat that is solid at room temperature and liquid when heated. It is made from the suet - the hard fat around the kidneys and loins - and sometimes from fat trim off the carcass.
The most famous modern use: McDonald's originally fried their french fries in beef tallow until 1990, when they switched to vegetable oil under pressure from health advocates. Many people believe the fries have not been as good since.
Why It Fell Out of Use
The anti-saturated fat movement of the 1970s-1980s framed saturated fat as the primary driver of heart disease and pushed vegetable and partially-hydrogenated oils as a healthier alternative. Animal fats were largely displaced. The partially-hydrogenated trans fats that replaced them have since been shown to be significantly more problematic for cardiovascular health than saturated animal fats.
Why It Is Back
Renewed interest in traditional foods, nose-to-tail cooking, and ancestral diets has brought tallow back into fashion. From a purely culinary standpoint, beef tallow has a very high smoke point (around 420F), a rich beefy flavor, and produces exceptional results for frying, sauteing vegetables, roasting potatoes, and finishing steaks.
How to Use It
- Roast potatoes: Toss with melted tallow instead of olive oil before roasting. The result is a crispier, more flavorful crust.
- Frying: Excellent for deep frying - high smoke point and flavor that complements rather than competes with food
- Steak sear: Use tallow in a cast iron for searing steaks - it handles the heat better than butter alone
- Vegetables: Roasted carrots, Brussels sprouts, and other root vegetables in tallow are outstanding
- Skin care: Pure tallow is used as a moisturizer and skin balm by some - the fatty acid profile is considered beneficial for skin
How to Get Beef Tallow
Ask your local butcher shop for beef suet or kidney fat - often free or very cheap as it would otherwise be trimmed and discarded. You render it yourself at home over low heat for several hours, strain through cheesecloth, and pour into jars. It keeps refrigerated for months and frozen indefinitely.
Some butcher shops and farms also sell pre-rendered tallow. Find a local butcher shop on Butcher Bud and ask whether they have suet or rendered tallow available.