On the Rise: Beef Tallow is the Ingredient to Watch in 2025

Remember those extra crispy, rich and addictive french fries from McDonald’s we couldn’t get enough of back in the ‘70s and ‘80s? The secret ingredient then was beef tallow. Now, the old-school fat’s making a major comeback for both taste and – believe it or not – nutrition reasons, as some chefs and consumers look to swap processed seed oils for what they describe as more “natural” fat sources. The trend’s catching on – research firm Technomic projected beef tallow to grow on menus by 54% in the next two years. 

Beef Tallow Makes a Comeback

Why Should We Care?

US Foods® Food Fanatics® Chef Denny Trantham and Fresh Product Specialist Ryan Huneau point out a growing movement back to using (preferably grass-fed) tallow, a 100% natural byproduct, as a replacement to processed seed oils such as canola, vegetable or soybean oil or blends, which are highly processed. While the debate over frying with saturated fat continues, there’s one undeniable reason for using the fat. “It makes everything crispier and exponentially more delicious,” Huneau says. “It also doesn’t cost that much more than other oils, it has a high smoking point, and it cuts down on production waste because you’re using the whole animal.”

How Should We Use It?

Designate a fryer just for tallow (sold in blocks), and do some test runs to determine melt and fry times, as well as filtering frequency. “It’s kind of like learning to drive a stick shift after driving an automatic for a while – you have to practice until you get the hang of it,” says Trantham. It’s also important to call out the tallow on menus for customers who are vegetarian or avoiding animal fats.

Who’s Doing It?

US Foods customer Stacy Tecler, of Stacy’s Scratch Kitchen in Broadalbin, New York, uses beef tallow to fry her beer-battered, fresh haddock fish and chips , BLT mozzarella sticks, bacon-mashed potato balls, mushroom-stuffed wontons and more.

Bartenders are even getting in the game, using tallow for “fat-washing” alcohol – a flavor-infusion process that involves adding a fat such as bacon or beef fat to a spirit, chilling it and skimming off the solidified layer – not unlike skimming a stock. For example, the Pho Wimme cocktail at The Felix in San Francisco is made with rye that’s fat-washed with spiced beef tallow left over from making pho and paired with Benedictine and mole bitters.

Click here for Tecler’s Beef Tallow-Fried Fish & Chips and here for her Beef Tallow-Fried Bacon-Mashed Potato Balls. For more information on sourcing and working with tallow, click here.