Cooking with Lard, Should You?

Cooking with lard. It wasn’t butter or canola oil. And definitely not extra virgin olive oil. Lard, (rendered pork fat) was what people used when they needed to make pastry or when dinner needed frying. Here’s why you should cook with lard.

I bought some lard yesterday. Ok, pipe down everyone and don’t have a heart attack (pun intended). It’s not like I”m going to be frying up vats of flour-dredged deep fat fried food everyday, I just happen to like lard for certain things. And you should too.

Here are reasons you should cook with Lard:

• It’s great for cooking at high heat. It doesn’t smoke, and it browns things beautifully
• I’m not afraid of butter, but Lard has 20% less saturated fat than butter. it’s higher in monounsaturated fats which are said to lower LDL cholesterol; and it has none of the trans fat that shortening does.  Chew on that.
• It doesn’t give food a pork flavor. It’s not bacon, it’s rendered fat. It makes everything crispy without leaving flavor.
• As much as we all love olive oil roasted veggies, sometimes they can turn out a little soggy. Try using lard next time and tell me what you think.
• I learned the importance of using every bit of the hog in Culinary School. Lard guarantees that you’ll feel “sustainable”.
• Biscuits – nuff said.
• Add a scoop to your dried beans in the crockpot, like I do for my Cowboy Beans. They’ll turn out creamier than ever.

Just look at that fluffy scoop of Morrell Lard. Seems like there should be a little skier swishing down that pristine slope. We see now why Morrell has so suitably named their product Snow Cap.

And you bet, there was no shortage of lard at Lowe’s.

So with all of that said, we’ve got a spring-like day here in Denver, so I’m off to walk the dogs a couple of miles. Afterall, I don’t want to turn into a lard-ass!  🙂

Why Cook With Lard? Because it makes everything better.