In This Article
No. Tallow comes from a cow and lard comes from a pig. That is the whole answer to the question most people type, and it is the one thing the two jars do not tell you when they are sitting side by side on a shelf looking like the same white fat.
I cook with both all the time, and with avocado oil too. Below is the difference in actual numbers, not in the vague terms most articles use.
First, the words
Tallow is beef fat, rendered. Rendering just means you cook the fat slowly until it melts out of the tissue and you strain it. Sheep fat can become tallow too, but in an American shop you are almost always buying beef. Oddly, there is no federal standard for edible tallow. The word on the tub is a description, nothing more.
Lard is different. It has a legal definition, and it is short: “the fat rendered from clean and sound edible tissues from swine.”1 Pig, and only pig.
Then there is leaf lard, which is the good stuff. The same rule says it is made from leaf fat, the soft fat inside the pig’s abdomen. Cooks usually describe it as the fat around the kidneys.1 It barely tastes of anything, and bakers pay extra for it.
Suet is where the confusion starts. It is the raw, hard fat around a cow’s kidneys. Render it and you have tallow. Same fat, before and after.
The numbers, from the USDA
Grams per 100 grams, straight from the government’s food database:2
| Beef tallow | Lard | |
|---|---|---|
| Saturated fat | 49.8 g | 39.2 g |
| Monounsaturated fat | 41.8 g | 45.1 g |
| Polyunsaturated fat | 4.0 g | 11.2 g |
| Linoleic acid (omega 6) | 3.1 g | 10.2 g |
| Cholesterol | 109 mg | 95 mg |
Look at the saturated fat first. Tallow has about half. That is why a tub of tallow is hard as a candle in the cupboard, while lard stays soft enough to scoop.
Now look at linoleic acid. Lard has roughly three times as much. Linoleic acid is the main polyunsaturated fat in seed oils, so if that is the reason you left canola behind, this row matters more than the rest of the table put together.
One caveat. These are averages. A pig raised on pasture will not produce exactly the lard in this table, and neither will a grass fed cow produce exactly this tallow.
In the pan
Tallow tastes like beef. Unless it has been refined hard, you will notice it, which is great on roast potatoes and seared steak and less great in a cake. It takes high heat steadily, and a lot of people deep fry in it.
Lard is milder and softer. Regular lard has a faint pork note. Leaf lard hardly has any flavour at all, which is exactly why it shows up in pie crust, biscuits and tortillas. It is what makes the pastry flake.
You will find smoke points printed for both. They never seem to agree. I looked for a measured number from a government lab or a peer reviewed paper and could not find one for either fat, so I am not going to print a figure I cannot stand behind. What holds true is simpler: refined fat smokes later, and fat you have already fried in smokes sooner.
Is one of them healthier?
Honestly, that depends on who you ask. Mainstream guidance still says to limit saturated fat. Plenty of people who cook with animal fat think that guidance is wrong. I am not going to settle it in a blog post.
The table does answer a smaller question. Tallow is more saturated with less linoleic acid. Lard is less saturated with more. Decide which of those two you care about, and the choice makes itself.
What the label on the tub means
“Grass fed” tallow and “pasture raised” lard tell you how the animal lived. Neither claim comes with a lab test of the fat, so you cannot tell from the jar how far it sits from the USDA average. They can still be worth paying for, for the animal’s sake.
“Rendered” is not a selling point. Every tallow and every lard is rendered. It is like a bottle of juice announcing that it was squeezed.
What I have bought
One tallow and one lard, both in my order history. I have also bought tallow from local ranchers at farmers markets, which you can’t link to.
South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow (the beef one)
A big 42 oz tub. Firm at room temperature, like the numbers above say it should be.
Purchase signal: Ordered twice, 2023 and 2025.
Price: $29.69 on September 26.
Fatworks Pasture-Raised Leaf Lard (the pig one)
Leaf lard is always the expensive lard. Per ounce this is far more than the tallow, which is why it tends to end up in pastry.
Purchase signal: Once, in 2022.
Price: $34.99 for a 14 oz jar when I looked on September 26.
Quick questions
Are tallow and lard the same thing?
No. Tallow is from cattle, sometimes sheep. Lard is from pigs.
Is there such a thing as beef lard?
Not under the federal definition, which says lard is pig fat. Rendered beef fat is tallow. That is my reading of the rule rather than an official USDA ruling, but a tub labelled “beef lard” is almost certainly tallow.
Can I swap one for the other?
For frying and roasting, mostly, if you do not mind the flavour changing. For pastry, not really. Tallow is firmer and beefier, and the crust will show it.
Is suet the same as tallow?
Suet is the raw fat. Tallow is suet after it has been rendered.
Which is better for frying?
Both work. Tallow has less linoleic acid, which is why a lot of people who avoid seed oils reach for it. The frying oils guide goes further.
The bottom line
Cow versus pig. Tallow is firmer and more saturated. Lard is softer, with about three times the linoleic acid, and leaf lard is the one bakers want. I keep cooking with both. Which one goes in the pan comes down to the flavour you are after and what you are trying to keep off your plate.
References
- Code of Federal Regulations. 9 CFR 319.702: Lard, leaf lard. eCFR
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, SR Legacy: Fat, beef tallow (FDC 171400) and Lard (FDC 171401). FoodData Central
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