Making leaf lard

great for baking, cooking beans and greens, and showing your cast iron cookware some love!

I put together a quick tutorial on how we make our fabulous pure leaf lard from pig fat.

Leaf lard is made by rendering leaf fat - the fat inside the pig’s body cavity, around the kidneys. This is distinct from subcutaneous fat on the back of the pig (fatback) or the belly (where the bacon comes from).

The leaf fat is the purest fat - if it’s rendered “low and slow” (over low heat for several hours) it produces a white, creamy, almost flavorless lard. This makes it great for baking and making pastries and desserts, in addition to typical pork fat uses like pan frying, cooking beans and greens, etc.

Leaf lard is also a miracle first-aid for your cast iron cookware. Nothing will keep a seasoned cat iron skillet’s surface slick and in that glassy mirror-like shine better than regular heat treatments with some pure leaf lard!

Leaf lard is shelf-stable for a few months up to a few years. Dark and cool conditions promote longer stability.

Quick details

• One of our kune kune pigs yields 7-10 lbs of leaf fat.

• Packaged leaf fat needs to be trimmed to remove meat residues, and the membrane that is attached to one side of the fat. Then the pure white fat is cut into ~1” square chunks.

• Start by heating 1/2 cup of water per lb of fat in a large stock pot. The water keeps the fat chucks from scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would contribute undesirable flavors.

• Heat at 220-250 F for 2.5 to 5 hours. Strain out the crackins and other solid matter.

• 10 lbs of packaged leaf fat yields about 8 pints of rendered lard.

The video below shows the whole seven hour process (prep + rendering) in just seven minutes! Here, 38.8 lbs of packaged leaf fat (four pigs’ worth) yielded 30 pints of beautiful pure leaf lard!

Try it yourself at home or buy some of ours!

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