13 Must-Know Brands of Jarred Beef Tallow

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Tallow, a rendered form of animal fat — typically from beef or lamb — has been enjoyed for thousands of years. Ancient civilizations relied on tallow for cooking, as fuel for lamps, and as part of soap and candle making. When vegetable oils became more mainstream in the 20th century, people moved away from butter, lard, and tallow as primary cooking fats. But recently, interest in these pure, unadulterated fats has been on the rise, and tallow has been making headlines. Just as history can repeat itself, we often find that what’s old becomes new again.

With beef tallow making a comeback for frying french fries at popular establishments like Steak ‘n Shake, home cooks are embracing it in their own kitchens. Tallow features a high smoke point, making it perfect for searing steaks, frying chicken, or roasting potatoes. It’s shelf-stable and versatile enough to be used in skincare as well as cooking. While homemade tallow is ideal, there are many jarred beef tallow brands on the market worth noting. We rounded up more than a dozen brands based on customer favorites — from well-known names to lesser-known ones.



South Chicago Packing

A fifth-generation, family-owned business, South Chicago Packing originally focused on meat packing but expanded to provide additional specialty products like animal fats and oil blends. Among its offerings are lard and beef tallow. South Chicago Packing Wagyu beef tallow comes highly recommended by thousands of consumers for its light, creamy texture and mild, delicate taste. Wagyu beef tallow is different from regular beef tallow since it’s sourced from a Japanese cattle breed that’s known for its high fat percentage. Due to this high fat percentage, beef cuts from this special breed are incredibly well-marbled.

Made in the U.S. from cattle that are pasture raised, South Chicago Packing Wagyu beef tallow is available in a small jar size or spray can for the average household, as well as a large 42-ounce canister for those who want it for deep frying or happen to use a lot of tallow on a regular basis.

Fatworks

Recommended by thousands of customers, Fatworks beef tallow is praised for its appearance, quality, and taste. Fatworks sources most fat from farmers across the U.S. who raise pastured cattle, poultry, and forested pigs. Regenerative agriculture is at the heart of it all, where animals are free to roam and feed on non-GMO grains and grass. The animals are also free from antibiotics and added hormones. By carefully selecting farms that use the highest standards, Fatworks can offer its customers premium, high-quality animal fats such as lard, tallow, and duck fat

Customers love the beef tallow for cooking and frying, noting its effectiveness for creating crispy, delicious foods. Some feel the smell is a bit strong and beefy, but others feel it’s great for tallow. Additionally, many tallow users love how it makes their skin feel soft and velvety while the skin absorbs it effortlessly. The texture is described as gritty and grainy, which indicates a subtle separation of solid and rendered fat. Fatworks offers organic grass-fed beef tallow, pork lard, duck fat, bison tallow, turkey fat, chicken schmaltz, Wagyu beef tallow, elk tallow, lamb tallow, wild boar lard, and goose fat.

The Ungovernable Project

The Ungovernable Project bases its business on getting back to traditional and ancestral cooking and skincare with pure, natural beef tallow. The company creates a premium product that’s crafted with pride from USDA Certified Responsibly Raised cattle. Committed to animal welfare, the project emphasizes a high quality of life for its pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle, which are located on a South-Central Texas ranch. Embracing regenerative farming practices, the cattle are free from antibiotics and hormones, ensuring a pure, natural product.

Meat lovers rave about its superior tallow, noting its clean beef taste with no added ingredients. The tallow is hand-made in small batches from the suet only and is available in 16-ounce and 1-gallon glass jars, which are ideal for traditional cooking and skincare. Beyond beef tallow, The Ungovernable Project offers skin cream infused with berries, honey, herbs, and other natural ingredients. By prioritizing sustainability and craftsmanship, The Ungovernable Project delivers a product that honors early tradition, supports ethical farming, and provides high-quality goods for those seeking authentic, responsibly sourced tallow. Tens of thousands of Instagram followers agree this is a beef tallow brand you should know about.

Five Marys Meats

Five Marys Ranch, a family-owned and operated ranch in rural Northern California, is named after Mary Heffernan and her four daughters, all of whom are named Mary. The Heffernans built the ranch from the ground up, raising Black Angus cattle, Navajo-Churro sheep, Berkshire hogs, and hens using rotational grazing on wild, non-GMO grass pastures. Their beef, pork, and lamb are grass-fed, non-GMO barley-finished, and never treated with hormones or antibiotics. The beef is dry-aged for 21 to 28 days for optimal tenderness and flavor, and can be shipped nationwide. Five Marys offers a variety of beef cuts, has a burgerhouse for on-site dining, and is in the process of building a butchery.

With hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, Five Marys is a favorite among meat lovers, for both its meat and tallow. Their nutrient-rich beef tallow is available as sticks and in jars, making it versatile for different types of cooking. Five Marys also produces floral-scented and unscented tallow-based skincare creams. They offer pork lard as well.

Hometown Meat Market

Hometown Meat Market, formerly known as K & C Cattle Company, is the processing plant for 2 Bar C Ranch in Central Texas. The farm is a generational operation dedicated to regenerative ranching. Specializing in pasture-raised Black Angus cattle, the ranch focuses on preserving the breed’s genetics while ensuring animals roam freely in lush, grassy pastures. The cattle are grass-fed and grain-finished, raised without hormones, mRNA vaccines, or antibiotics, which produces high-quality beef and beef products. The ranch also raises pigs and poultry.

Hometown Meat Market’s beef tallow is crafted in small batches by hand using only the suet, keeping to tradition and quality practices. This nutrient-rich tallow is great for cooking and skincare, creating a versatile product customers love. Fans of Hometown Meat Market rave about the exceptional beef products, celebrating the rich flavor and ethical practices. The tallow is available in small, glass Ball jars.

Fond

Fond is loved for its wide variety of chicken and beef bone broth, but its roll-out of beef tallow has pleased customers just as much. Fond stands out as the first verified regenerative beef tallow, which is crafted from pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle using sustainable, regenerative ranching practices. Produced in small batches, the tallow is slowly rendered in stainless steel kettles for about six to eight hours. Fond uses the suet — the hard, white fatty layer around the kidneys — which is melted with low heat and then strained for purity. Tallow can be made faster on the stovetop, where it takes three to four hours, but it requires constant supervision, so it doesn’t burn. Bonus, you can eat the beef cracklings left behind after straining — crunchy bits of beef that float to the top of the tallow.

Focused on quality and sustainability, Fond offers tallow in unflavored and flavored varieties like turmeric and black pepper, chili pepper and garlic, and rosemary and pink peppercorn. Fond also offers cinnamon and vanilla pork lard, which is perfect for baking, alongside unflavored lard.

Lineage Provisions

Lineage Provisions was founded by two doctors and originally began with crafting meat snacks. Basing their mission on a commitment to health, sustainability, and high quality, the beef tallow is crafted from grass-fed and grass-finished cattle raised through regenerative farming practices, resulting in nutrient-rich products. Rendered slowly in small batch kettles, each batch undergoes rigorous testing for common contaminants in order to guarantee a pure and safe product. A common mistake when making beef tallow is rendering it too fast, which can result in a grainy, wet-sand texture because not all of the fat melts completely, which can leave impurities in the tallow.

Unlike many brands that rely solely on rendering the suet, Lineage Provisions innovatively uses fat sourced from the entire carcass. This unique approach yields a distinctively smooth, butter-like texture and a richer, more vibrant yellow hue, setting it apart from traditional tallows. The result is a versatile product ideal for cooking, baking, or skincare, where the creamy consistency enhances flavor and softens the skin. Tallow is available in 14-ounce glass jars, sold in packs of three or six.

Epic Provisions

Epic Provisions has been selling grass-fed beef, bison, and venison products for a while, offering meaty items like snack bars, bone broth, pork rinds, and animal fats. The company also features free-range chicken, cage-free ducks, and wild-caught salmon products. Its diverse lineup is rooted in a commitment to regenerative ranching and rotational grazing practices that prioritize environmental sustainability and animal welfare.

Epic’s beef tallow, rendered in 11-ounce glass jars, is great for cooking or skincare, along with its duck fat and pork lard. Acquired by General Mills in 2016, Epic Provisions has recently been inundated with customer reviews suggesting a decline in quality. Though I render my own tallow, on the occasions I’ve purchased beef tallow, Epic has been my choice, and I’ve never had a problem with quality. Due to such mixed feedback, we suggest buyer beware. Despite corporate changes, the tallow and other options continue to appeal to consumers seeking high-quality, sustainably produced animal fats and proteins, though vigilance regarding quality is advised.

Essential Depot

Essential Depot’s beef tallow is a versatile, high-quality product sourced from grass-fed, non-GMO cattle in the USA and Canada. Rendered from the entire animal, this unbleached tallow is packaged in durable plastic containers, available in multiple sizes, including a substantial 25-pound bucket, catering to both home cooks and artisans. Essential Depot emphasizes traditional uses, producing tallow ideal for crafting soaps and skincare products, thanks to its rich fatty profile.

Customers praise its performance in frying, thanks to its high smoke point, which helps ensure stable, high-heat cooking. Its texture received mixed reviews — some say it’s creamy, while others note it’s grainy, but the consensus highlights good value and quality for culinary and skincare applications. Beyond beef tallow, the company also offers a wide range of fats and oils, including lard, appealing to those seeking natural, sustainable ingredients. Despite possible leaking during warmer months, customers like the heavy-duty, resealable packaging and overall reliability, making Essential Depot a good multi-purpose tallow.

Primal Pastures

Primal Pastures, located in Southern California, crafts premium beef tallow from grass-fed, grass-finished cattle that are raised on lush, certified organic pastures. Committed to regenerative ranching, the farm uses rotational grazing to help enhance soil health and increase biodiversity, ensuring cattle thrive without hormones, antibiotics, grains, corn, or soy. The entire property is certified organic and operates free of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Primal Pastures also runs on solar power, which is in line with its dedication to true sustainability.

Customers value Primal Pastures beef tallow for its versatility and the farm’s ethical practices, which prioritize animal welfare and environmental stewardship. Primal Pastures delivers a tallow that is drawn from the benefits of regenerative agriculture. It’s minimally processed, and the farm avoids using industrial methods in order to preserve tradition and maintain natural purity and nutrient density. Available in 14-ounce glass jars, it’s ideal for cooking, baking, or skincare with its clean, high smoke point, and rich flavor.

Sulu

Sulu Organics sources its tallow from pasture-raised U.S. cows. The tallow is a premium, grass-fed product free from hormones, vaccines, antibiotics, and GMOs. Sulu renders its tallow from suet — as mentioned previously, the fat that surrounds the kidneys. Suet, which shouldn’t be confused with lard (pork fat), is melted down to a liquid over low heat. The liquid tallow is then filtered and purified without preservatives, which results in a clean, nutrient-rich tallow. Sulu offers its beef tallow in 4- and 7-pound plastic tubs.

Thousands of customers recommend Sulu beef tallow for frying and cooking, boasting about its fluffy, smooth texture. Consumers also praise its versatility, using it for skincare in addition to cooking. The color of the tallow ranges from light cream to light yellow and reviews are mixed regarding the smell — some say it has a mild scent, while others feel it has a strong beefy smell. Overall, customers think Sulu beef tallow is good quality and value.

Santa Cruz Paleo

Santa Cruz Paleo beef tallow is a premium, grass-fed, and grass-finished product. Different than many other tallow brands, Santa Cruz Paleo triple filters its tallow for supreme purity. As a result of the triple filtration, the tallow features less of a beefy smell, though customers give mixed reviews regarding this trait — some saying it’s less pronounced and others claiming a beefy scent. Customers do praise its smooth consistency and creamy texture. Many like it for cooking and frying, noting its tasty, mild flavor. Others use it for skincare, praising its effectiveness as a moisturizer.

Santa Cruz Paleo beef tallow is sourced from cattle that roam on regenerative pastures. This high-quality standard trickles down to the final product. Consumers consistently agree the tallow offers good overall value, and it earns high marks for quality and performance. The beef tallow is available in tinted 8-ounce glass jars, and it’s preserved for freshness in a convenient size for home use. Santa Cruz Paleo also offers a luxurious tallow-based moisturizer blended with beeswax and honey, which is celebrated by consumers for its hydrating and soothing properties. 

MD Life

MD Life beef tallow is manufactured in the USA. It’s grass-fed and non-GMO, and it’s celebrated by thousands of customers. Sourced from pasture-raised cattle, this tallow is liked for its high quality and clean appearance, making it a versatile choice for frying, baking, or crafting soaps and candles. MD Live beef tallow is available in sizes ranging from 16 ounces to an impressive 24 pounds, which caters to diverse needs, from home cooking to large-scale culinary or skincare applications.

Customers say this tallow has a butter-like texture to it and compliment its creaminess, both for cooking and skincare. It features a rich taste that customers enjoy. Some customer opinions are mixed when it comes to the overall value but most feel it’s a good bargain. Similarly, the smell divides users, with some reporting a strong, beefy odor, while others didn’t notice any scent at all.

Methodology

I gathered this list first by asking a community of serious meat eaters about their preferred brand of beef tallow. Once I had that list, I did a search online for some of the best tallow brands by reading reviews and checking out lengthier articles. 

The majority of the brands on the list are direct from farms that practice regenerative ranching. Many of the brands come highly recommended by meat lovers and online reviewers for both cooking and skincare.