Beef fat, most commonly in its rendered form called tallow, has a surprisingly wide range of uses that spans cooking, skincare, soap making, pet food, biodiesel production, and more. While most people associate it with frying, beef fat has been one of the most versatile animal byproducts for centuries.
Cooking and Baking
The most common use for beef fat is in the kitchen. Rendered beef tallow has a smoke point of around 400°F to 480°F, which is significantly higher than butter (302°F) and lard (374°F). That high heat tolerance makes it excellent for deep-frying, pan-frying, and sautéing. McDonald’s famously used beef tallow for its french fries until 1990, and many restaurants and home cooks have returned to it for the rich flavor and crispy texture it produces.
Beyond frying, beef tallow works well for roasting vegetables and meats, giving them a golden, crispy exterior. Some bakers substitute it for butter or lard in pie crusts, biscuits, and pastries, where it creates a flakier, more tender texture. Brushing tallow on steaks or burgers before grilling adds flavor and helps prevent the meat from drying out.
Tallow is mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat, with oleic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid as its primary fatty acids. It also contains small amounts of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, K, E, and B12.
Soap Making
Beef tallow has been a core soap ingredient for hundreds of years. When combined with lye (sodium hydroxide), tallow undergoes a chemical reaction called saponification, producing sodium tallowate, the base of most traditional bar soaps. Many commercial soap brands still list sodium tallowate as their first ingredient.
Tallow gives soap two qualities that are hard to replicate with plant-based oils alone. First, it creates a very hard bar, which means the soap lasts longer and doesn’t dissolve quickly in the shower. Second, it produces a rich, creamy lather that many people prefer over the thinner foam from olive oil or coconut oil soaps.
Skincare and Cosmetics
Tallow has gained popularity as a skincare ingredient, particularly in balms and moisturizers. The appeal comes from its fatty acid profile: tallow’s mix of oleic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, and linoleic acid closely resembles the fats found naturally in human skin. Skin cells show a particularly high uptake of linoleic acid and arachidonic acid, both present in tallow.
A scoping review published in Cureus examined tallow’s biocompatibility with skin and noted its use in cosmetic emulsions, where it contributes to hydration and improved skin condition. Companies have built entire product lines around tallow-based moisturizers. Blends of animal tallow with plant oils have also shown potential as bases for cosmetic emulsions, helping stabilize the product while enhancing moisturization.
Pet Food
Beef tallow is a common ingredient in commercial dog and cat foods. It serves as a concentrated source of calories, since fat contains more than twice the energy per gram compared to carbohydrates or protein. According to Ohio State University’s Extension program, rendered animal fats like tallow also improve flavor, texture, and nutrient content in pet food. Compared to vegetable oils, animal fats tend to remain more stable and palatable over time, which matters for shelf life.
Animal Feed
The single largest industrial use of inedible beef tallow is as a supplement in animal feed, accounting for about 62% of all inedible tallow produced. It provides a dense energy source for livestock and poultry, helping animals gain weight efficiently.
Biodiesel and Industrial Products
Beef tallow can be converted into biodiesel through a process that combines the fat with an alcohol like methanol and a catalyst. USDA research found that tallow-based biodiesel has a favorable energy balance, meaning it produces more energy than it takes to make. The energy return varies depending on where you start counting: if you only measure the conversion step itself, the energy return ratio can be as high as 7 to 1. Factor in the full rendering process, and it drops to around 1.35 to 1.79, still a net positive.
Production costs have historically ranged from about 92 cents to $1.67 per gallon, making tallow biodiesel competitive in certain market conditions, especially when blended with petroleum diesel to meet emissions standards.
Beyond fuel, inedible tallow feeds into several other industrial channels. About 22% goes into fatty acid production, which supplies ingredients for plastics, rubber, and textiles. Another 10% is used in soap manufacturing, and roughly 3% becomes industrial lubricants. The remaining fraction goes into miscellaneous products including crayons, chalk, and adhesives.
Candle Making
Before paraffin wax and electricity, tallow candles were a primary source of artificial light. The Tallow Chandlers’ Company formed in London around 1300 to regulate candle making from animal fats, and tallow candles played a direct role in the city’s earliest compulsory street lighting. A city order required all London households to hang a lantern lit by a tallow candle outside their homes. Tallow remained the dominant candle material until the 19th century, when spermaceti (from whale oil) and later paraffin wax replaced it. Some artisan candle makers still use tallow today, though it’s a niche product.