• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Nourishing Gourmet

Nourishing. Satisfying. Gourmet.

  • THM Coaching
  • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact
  • Recipes
  • Cookbooks
    • Everyday Nourishing Food
    • Salad Cookbook
    • Soup Cookbook

How to Render Tallow from Your Beef Broth

June 11, 2015 by KimiHarris 8 Comments

Thanks for stopping by! If you're interested in healthy eating check out my free gifts! and subscribe to get regular email updates. *Some links may be affiliate.*
Thanks for stopping by! If you're interested in healthy eating check out my free gifts! and subscribe to get regular email updates. *Some links may be affiliate.*

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

So, you’ve made a delicious, nutritious, homemade beef broth, and it now has a glorious layer of beef fat on the top. Now what? Don’t waste it! With just a few short steps, you can render it for a delicious cooking fat! This lovely cooking fat is stable at high temperatures, making it lovely for sautéing or roasting vegetables and meats, and many other uses!

As long-time readers know, I try to balance using quality, good ingredients, with a realistic budget. A practical way to make that happen is by not wasting anything. Certainly, saving and using this quality fat is a great way to eat well AND save money! Because we try to only buy top quality oils and fats, this helps tremendously in how much we spend on our oils/fats.

And don’t worry. It’s simple to make!

How to Render Tallow from Beef Broth

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

1. After you have cooled your homemade beef broth in the refrigerator, there should be a layer of fat on the top. How much fat there is depends on what type of bones you use. Because we try to use at least some marrow bones in each batch, we typically have quite a bit. Scoop this fat off and place into a pot. (I use a small pot for one batch of fat.)

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

2. Gently heat the fat over low heat until it is completely liquid.

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

3. Pour over cheesecloth placed over a fine sieve over a heat safe bowl (or 4 cup measuring cup) to strain out any bits.

After you make homemade beef stock/broth, there is always a lovely layer of tallow on the top of the broth. Learn here how you can render and save it for lots of cooking projects! Don't waste it! It's an excellent cooking fat. --- The Nourishing Gourmet

4. At this point, you can do the lazy method of simply pouring the fat into a mason jar and re-hardening it in the refrigerator. Any leftover bits or small drops of broth will go to the bottom of the jar, and because fat is a type of preservative, the fat won’t go bad and I just don’t use the very last bit of fat at the bottom of the jar. This is what is pictured above.

5. Or, to make it completely free of any broth or bits, pour into a wide container such as an 8 by 8-inch pan. Let re-harden in the refrigerator, and then remove from the pan and turn upside down. You can then scrape off any bits or broth from the bottom of the fat. Reheat to liquefy, and pour into desired container of choice.

Keep refrigerated. Will keep for at least several months when refrigerated (freeze for longer storage).

How to Render Tallow from Your Beef Broth
 
Serves: 1 cup
Print
 
You will need a fine sieve and cheesecloth for this recipe.
Ingredients
  • Fat skimmed from the top of homemade beef stock
Instructions
  1. After you have cooled your homemade beef broth in the refrigerator, there should be a layer of fat on the top. How much fat there is depends on what type of bones you use. Because we try to use at least some marrow bones in each batch, we typically have quite a bit. Scoop this fat off and place into a pot. (I use a small pot for one batch of fat.)
  2. Gently heat the fat over low heat until it is completely liquid.
  3. Pour over cheesecloth placed over a fine sieve over a heat safe bowl to strain out any bits.
  4. At this point, you can do the lazy method of simply pouring the fat into a mason jar and re-hardening it in the refrigerator. Any leftover bits or small drops of broth will go to the bottom of the jar, and because fat is a type of preservative, the fat won’t go bad and I just don’t use the very last bit of fat at the bottom of the jar. This is what is pictured above.
  5. Or, to make it completely free of any broth or bits, pour into a wide container such as an 8 by 8-inch pan. Let re-harden in the refrigerator, and then remove from the pan and turn upside down. You can then scrape off any bits or broth from the bottom of the fat. Reheat to liquefy, and pour into desired container of choice.
  6. Keep refrigerated. Will keep for at least several months when refrigerated (freeze for longer storage).
3.3.3077

Related Posts:

  • Beef Stock
  • 10 reasons bone broth should be part of your diet
  • How to make chicken broth of practically free
  • Rich Roasted Broth
  • The Healing Power of Broth
  • My soup cookbook, Ladled: Nourishing Soups for All Seasons
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts

KimiHarris

I love beautiful and simple food that is nourishing to the body and the soul. I wrote Fresh: Nourishing Salads for All Seasons and Ladled: Nourishing Soups for All Seasons as another outlet of sharing this love of mine. I also love sharing practical tips on how to make a real food diet work on a real life budget. Find me online elsewhere by clicking on the icons below!

Latest posts by KimiHarris (see all)

  • Herbal Hibiscus Lemonade (Keto, THM) - March 16, 2022
  • Creamy Curry Red Lentil Soup - December 8, 2021
  • One-Pot Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese - December 2, 2021

Filed Under: Dairy Free, Egg Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Nourishing Frugal Recipes, Nourishing Frugal Tips, Nourishing Practices, Nutrient Dense Foods

Previous Post: « Good Reads and Good Eats
Next Post: Lampone: Authentic Raspberry Sorbet »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Catherine

    June 11, 2015 at 11:26 am

    My husband and I are raising our own grass-fed beef. Just last December I rendered some tallow from their suet for the first time. I expected it to make glorious cooking fat, but was very disappointed. When I sautéed some green beans in a few tablespoons of tallow, the fat congealed once the beans cooled and there were nasty, chalky chunks of fat all over the vegetables. And when I say cooled, I mean room temperature. They were impossible to eat minutes after being taken off the heat. Believe me, I am not faint-hearted–I eat beef liver and wobbly fat off the sides of pork chops and anything else most people would consider gross, but this tallow was too much for me. However, in all the research I’ve done no one mentions this cooling and texture problem. It was like coconut oil–that’s how hard it was. Do you have any advice for me as to how to avoid this? I ended up making the tallow into candles since no one in the family could stand to eat it.

    Reply
    • KimiHarris

      June 11, 2015 at 8:52 pm

      Yikes, Catherine! I haven’t had that happen yet. Beef tallow DOES solidify at room temperature, so you would need to eat food while it’s hot to avoid this (though, granted, I haven’t had that happen yet to me – perhaps because our house can be rather hot, or because the vegetables I have sauteed using tallow have released enough moisture into the tallow to change things up in its properties).

      Reply
  2. Holly

    June 11, 2015 at 1:22 pm

    Can you do the same thing with chicken broth? I Haven’t made beef broth…yet.

    Reply
    • KimiHarris

      June 11, 2015 at 8:48 pm

      Holly,

      Yes you can!

      Reply
  3. Krista

    June 13, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    A wonderful way to get more tallow! I haven’t had to render the fat for tallow since I started doing this.
    I keep it on the stove until it has stopped bubbling, otherwise some water will still be in the fat, which would lead to quicker spoilage.

    Reply
    • Mary

      February 28, 2016 at 1:26 pm

      Great idea, Krista! I did the same thing, just left it over the heat until the water bubbled off and then strained it and it was perfectly clean and clear. This is so easy and I would have just thrown all that beautiful fat away.

      Reply
  4. Mary Watters

    June 4, 2017 at 9:44 am

    I don’t understand why you can’t use the hardened fat (top layer off the bone broth) as is instead of going through the extra process of reheating and straining. I’m very new to this and made my first batch of bone broth the other day. Still have the hardened fat in the fridge and was wondering if I could saute with it. Thanks

    Reply
  5. Chris bonesteel

    April 13, 2018 at 10:58 am

    I add 2 pounds of fat trimmings to my stock as I make it, the bits of meat on the edges of fat add tons of flavor to the stock and I get a much thicker layer of tallow which I ise to cook virtually everything. When I runnout of tallow I decide its time to make more soup.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

ConvertKit Form

Get Every Recipe

And the insider's view from our kitchen

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Follow Me

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

Search

Please Read:

The information you find here at The Nourishing Gourmet is meant to help you become a better cook! This site is primarily for sharing family friendly recipes. It's not meant to give medical advice or to make any health claims on the prevention or curing of diseases.This site is only for informational and educational purposes. Please discuss with your own, qualified health care provider before adding in supplements or making any changes in your diet. Also, any links to sponsors or affiliates (including Amazon) may give me a percentage of the sale or a pay per click. Thank you for supporting this site.

Categories

  • $10 Main (42)
  • $5 Dishes (43)
  • 52 ways to save money on a healthy diet (53)
  • AIP (23)
  • Baked Goods (83)
  • Beverages (72)
  • Breakfast and Brunch (61)
  • Condiments (8)
  • Dairy Free (491)
  • Desserts (183)
  • Dietary Needs (6)
  • Egg Free (11)
  • Egg Free (85)
  • For the Kids (66)
  • For the Love of Food and Books (18)
  • Gluten Free (484)
  • Grain Free (95)
  • Health (75)
  • Kitchen Tools (4)
  • Main Dishes (126)
  • Nourishing Frugal Recipes (167)
  • Nourishing Frugal Tips (70)
  • Nourishing Practices (56)
  • Nutrient Dense Foods (70)
  • Q and A (15)
  • Salads (39)
  • Sides (101)
  • Snacks (123)
  • Soups (50)
  • The Healthy $1 Menu (21)
  • The Low Energy Guide to Healthy Cooking (18)
  • THM (2)
  • Trim Healthy Mama (2)
  • Uncategorized (846)
  • Vegan (240)
  • Vegetarian (360)

Recent Posts

  • Herbal Hibiscus Lemonade (Keto, THM)
  • Creamy Curry Red Lentil Soup
  • One-Pot Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese
  • Healthy Pumpkin Spice Granola
  • Crispy Pumpkin Spice Granola (oil-free)
  • Why I Use THM Principles Now
  • Vietnamese Beef Noodle Salad
  • Coconut Flour Pancakes
  • Instant Pot Mexican Shredded Chicken
  • Tender Instant Pot Carnitas (shredded pork for tacos)

Recent Comments

  • KimiHarris on How to make heavenly coconut milk whipped cream (with an isi dispenser)
  • KimiHarris on Autumn Beef Stew (Tomato Free)
  • KimiHarris on How to make heavenly coconut milk whipped cream (with an isi dispenser)
  • Milia on Our Experience Using Activated Charcoal When We had the ‘Stomach Bug’
  • Sharon on How to make heavenly coconut milk whipped cream (with an isi dispenser)

Fresh: Nourishing Salads for All Seasons

Get Every Recipe

And the insider's view from our kitchen

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Footer

Privacy

Copyright © 2022 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework