# Beef tallow - tell me about it?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** food-cooking
**Created:** [May 1, 2026, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687 "2026-05-01T03:10:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/1 "2026-05-01T03:10:45Z")
Something I reeeeeeally wanna order is currently doing a giveaway for a free jar of beef tallow.
Anyone here used it for anything?
If so, tips/advice?
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/2 "2026-05-01T03:14:57Z")
I mean - it’s a solid-at-room-temp fat, and can be used (depending on degree of refinement) for anything you would use a solid fat for including frying. If it’s _less_ refined, I would probably avoid it for sweet pastries, but for a flakey and tender crust for steak or other savory pies, it’s great.
Absolutely a win for any deep fried or sauteed beef dish as well, or maybe potatoes when adding additional savory favor.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/3 "2026-05-01T03:15:55Z")
The **Steak & Shake** down the street from us uses beef tallow for their fries and it has billboards on I-95 touting the fact. We tried it once and was not impressed, but that might not be because of an aversion to the stuff, might be substandard fries. Or preparation thereof.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/4 "2026-05-01T03:31:04Z")
I’ve used it for making Yorkshire puddings. Came out pretty good.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/5 "2026-05-01T03:36:15Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> Something I reeeeeeally wanna order is currently doing a giveaway for a free jar of beef tallow.
>
> Anyone here used it for anything?
Is it the cooking version, or the skincare version? Tallow makes fantastic french fries.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/6 "2026-05-01T03:41:37Z")
Just save the fat from the next time you fry up some ground beef for taco meat or bolognese spaghetti or sloppy joes or whatever.
As commom meat fats go, it’s not one of my favorites, coming in well behind bacon drippings, ham drippings, chicken schmalz, and turkey fat.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/7 "2026-05-01T04:03:14Z")
Heresy that you didn’t include duck fat in that list, it should be _second_ after bacon drippings, then chicken schmaltz, and then maybe beef tallow and the rest.
I kid, I kid, while that would be _my_ list, different people like different things.
Back to the OP, it seems @purplehorseshoe was already desperately wanting the unnamed macguffin, with the tallow a free bonus. So I guess the thread is just to figure out if it would be a waste, or a nice +1. For me, it would be nice +1, because most of the tallow I’ve recovered from cooking ends up being pretty heavily seasoned as a result of my cooking choices.
I don’t buy commercially provided tallow, because for most things various veggie oils or butter works just fine or better, and my wife wouldn’t use dead animal byproducts (vegetarian). But no, I don’t think you’d have any problem using it up either sans medical or religious objections to it.
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/8 "2026-05-01T07:02:48Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> desperately wanting the unnamed macguffin, with the tallow a free bonus. So I guess the thread is just to figure out if it would be a waste, or a nice +1
Yup yup. Googling around, I found references to using it for skin care as well as frying French-fries and such.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/9 "2026-05-01T13:46:13Z")
Know that grease that’s left over after you pan-fry ground beef? That’s beef tallow.
The main uses for it that I’m aware of is for adding flavor to fried and roasted dishes. For example, if you make roasted potatoes, you can toss the cooked potatoes in beef tallow before you do the final roast, and they’ll taste much better than if you used olive oil or something like that.
[The Best Crispy Roast Potatoes Ever Recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-roast-potatoes-ever-recipe)
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/10 "2026-05-01T15:29:19Z")
Beef tallow is like lard from pigs. Hard fat(suet) from around the kidneys of said animal.
We bought it to grind in with venison for a deer meat hamburger.
High smoke point. So great for deep frying.
If it’s real clean it’s good skin cream.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/11 "2026-05-01T17:16:56Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> The **Steak & Shake** down the street from us uses beef tallow for their fries and it has billboards on I-95 touting the fact.
To be clear that is part of their courting MAGA and MAHA consumers. RFK famously promotes beef tallow as healthier than those evil seed oils. _Steak and Shake_ also now has a chief MAHA officer.
> **[Steak 'n Shake's new 'Chief MAHA Officer' teases RFK Jr-inspired menu shift](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/steak-n-shakes-new-chief-maha-officer-teases-rfk-jr-inspired-menu-shift.amp)**
>
> Steak 'n Shake is announcing plans to switch to grass-fed beef chainwide by June 1, according to its newly appointed chief MAHA officer and former HHS senior advisor.
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### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/12 "2026-05-01T17:35:45Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> The **Steak & Shake** down the street from us uses beef tallow for their fries and it has billboards on I-95 touting the fact. We tried it once and was not impressed, but that might not be because of an aversion to the stuff, might be substandard fries. Or preparation thereof
I eat at a restaurant where they cook the French fries in tallow, and they’re delicious.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/13 "2026-05-01T17:36:36Z")
What? No love for lard? It’s by far my most used animal fat in cooking. Up there with bacon drippings, but I don’t cook nearly enough bacon to reserve enough bacon fat for home use (I generally just mix all the animal fats I collect together into one jar of schmaltz.)
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/14 "2026-05-01T18:23:44Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> Heresy that you didn’t include duck fat in that list, it should be _second_ after bacon dripping
Best fries we ever had were fried in duck fat.
But again, if the OP is getting the stuff made for skincare, pretty much all our posts here are invalid for their purpose. You cant cook with that stuff.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/15 "2026-05-01T18:43:22Z")
Political French fries? That doesn’t really surprise me.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/16 "2026-05-01T21:00:51Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> What? No love for lard? It’s by far my most used animal fat in cooking.
Well, as I said, I _mostly_ use butter and seed oils. While I didn’t grow up in a household that kept Kosher strictly, we never had ham, pork chops, or other pork forward dishes. So I didn’t grow up with it at all, outside of lard-forward local tortillas growing up.
As an adult, pork was an “also-ran” well behind beef, chicken and seafood options. Doesn’t mean I still didn’t love bacon, Chinese pork and leek dumplings, or _good_ BBQ pork, but I wasn’t _cooking_ it often.
And then in the last 10 or so years, where beef became stupidly expensive, and pork became the king of cheap meat critters, I’ve eaten a lot more of it at home. But almost always lean cuts - loin or tenderloin, so I rarely if ever had enough fat for drippings - and no strong need to purchase it either.
It’s a fine fat for it’s purposes, no argument, and heck I’d take it as a +1 if it came with something _else_ I wanted, but it, just like beef tallow, wouldn’t be in my top three culinarily speaking.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/17 "2026-05-01T21:16:55Z")
Oh, it’s just something I pick up at the grocery. Most of the groceries I go to have house rendered lard, so it’s the easiest animal fat to acquire. There’s also that hydrogenated shelf-stable stuff, but it’s nowhere near as good (except maybe for baking). They sell duck and goose fat where I shop, but it’s expensive compared to the lard.
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/18 "2026-05-01T21:23:01Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> Just save the fat from the next time you fry up some ground beef for taco meat or bolognese spaghetti or sloppy joes or whatever.
> [@bump](#):
>
> Know that grease that’s left over after you pan-fry ground beef? That’s beef tallow.
That’s not tallow. Tallow is rendered suet, which is specifically the fat from the internal body cavity, specifically around the kidneys. It’s much harder than the muscle fat from meat - see [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRsO9KdxXk&t=60s) . He’s talking about suet, but shows a block of rendered suet, which is tallow.
Tallow behaves very differently than leftover beef fat.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/19 "2026-05-01T21:24:32Z")
McDonalds fried their french fries in beef tallow until 1990. That is why you may remember them as tasting better in the past, compared to now.
Beef tallow is rendered, at a rendering plant, from the bones, hides, and fat from cows. A yellow, tasty, solid at room temperature, lard like fat. There is a LOT of it produced. I used to buy it by the tanker truck load for use in animal feed.
Every part of the animals we kill for food is used. There are no huge land fill dumps where dead anmal parts are sent. Just the rendering and selling of the parts and products, is also a major industry. It is one of those “out of sight, out of mind” things most people do not think about.
Everything has to go somewhere. Feedstuffs Magazine was important to my job in those days.
[Feedstuffs, your source for animal agriculture news](https://www.feedstuffs.com/)
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2026, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beef-tallow-tell-me-about-it/1029687/20 "2026-05-01T21:26:21Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> They sell duck and goose fat where I shop, but it’s expensive compared to the lard.
And there you go - cost. I don’t buy ghee (though I make it rarely), I don’t buy, tallow, duckfat, etc. Just butter and seed oils. The most expensive stuff is the high-smoke point oils that I get mostly for seasoning cast iron and high carbon steel.
I get bacon drippings from the very occasional times I buy bacon, and use it happily until it’s gone. The few times a year I buy a whole duck, ditto.
So, if I have spare fat from cooking - I use it happily. Otherwise, my cooking habits and choices don’t leave me with much fat surplus most of the time.
🤷♂️
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