When I made rillettes for the first time, the recipe called for fatback, and I didn’t know what exactly that was. So, I decided to research fatback and write a helpful post on what it is and how to eat it. Yum!

Can you eat fatback? Yes!

Fatback is used in forcemeat (terrines, rillettes, sausages etc.) and traditional dishes from the American south (fried fatback, green beans, baked beans and collard greens). It provides body to stews (cassoulet and beef bourguignon) and Ukrainian dishes (perogies, cabbage rolls and borscht). Rendered fatback is used for confit.

Many people still have lingering doubts about using fatback due to decades of anti-fat indoctrination. But fortunately, amateur and professional cooks from around the world know the pleasures of fatback. It’s actually a useful, delicious and healthy ingredient that boosts the enjoyment factor of many humble dishes.

Countless ways to enjoy fatback

Fatback is a popular ingredient in many international cuisines, and if you’ve never thought to try it, you’ll soon want to.

French dishes that use fatback:

• Popular forcemeat concoctions including terrines, rillettes, sausages, gratins, galantines, pâtés, charcuterie and roulades.
• Confit (this is meat—for example duck thighs—cooked and preserved in fat.)
• Stews including cassoulet (a meat and bean dish) and beef bourguignon (also known as beef burgundy).
• Potted meat.
• Salads.
• Omelettes.
• Vegetable and potato dishes.
• Game birds (fatback is applied under the skin to keep the lean meat moist).

Dishes from the American south—including soul food—that use fatback:

• Fried fatback.
• Salt pork (called streak o’ lean when there’s a bit of meat in the fat).
• Green beans, including slow stewed southern green beans.
• Baked beans, black-eyed peas, pinto beans.
• Collard greens.
• Turnip greens.
• Grits (a cornmeal dish).
• Cornbread.
• Succotash.
• Biscuits and fatback.
• Hoppin’ John, also known as Carolina peas and rice.

Ukrainain dishes that use fatback:

• Perogies.
• Cabbage rolls.
• Borscht.
• Kovbasa sausage.
• Salo (which is the fatback itself).
• Carpathians sausage.
• Stewed cabbage.

And a bunch more dishes that call for fatback:

• Fried creamed corn.
• Fish and brewis with scrunchions (Check out this traditional dish from Newfoundland and Labrador on All Recipes—described by the author as, “Delicious as all get-out!”)
• New England baked beans.
• Gravy.
• Meatloaf.
• Fried corn.
• Potato and fatback soup.
• Fried cod tongues with scrunchions (also from Newfoundland and Labrador).
• Tonkotsu ramen broth.
• Brunswick Stew, a stew created by Jimmy Matthews in 1828 in Brunswick County, Virginia where it’s considered an “astonishing gastronomic miracle.”
• Appalachian soup beans.
• Clam chowder.
• Stuffing.
• Catfish stew.
• Hamburgers.

What to call fatback around the globe

Now that you know there are many ways to eat fatback, you might be curious about what it’s called around the world. So, the next time you travel—even if it’s just to the international section of the cookbook store—you’ll know what to say yes to.

USA, Canada, England	Fatback
Italy	Lardo
France	Lardons (this refers also to bacon and other pork fat) Petit Salé (when it’s salt pork)
Puerto Rico and Cuba	Tocino
Ukraine	Salo
Hungary	Szalonna
Southwest United States	Chicharrón
Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada)	Scrunchions

Fatback that includes the skin is also delicious. This is commonly called pork rinds, scratchings, cracklings, and chicharrones/chicharrón.

And, of course, fatback can be rendered down into lard, another versatile ingredient from the animal Homer Simpson famously referred to as magical.

But before you feel comfortable cooking with fatback, you may want to clear up the same questions I had when I was investigating fatback. Keep reading as they’re next.

What’s the difference between fat back and salt pork?

Fatback is simply a slab of fat from the back of the pig. It’s a white, hard fat and doesn’t typically have any meat attached. Traditionally, salt pork is simply cured fatback; the fatback is cured and preserved in salt.

In the olden days, the difference between fatback and salt pork was simply salt. The salt adds flavour to the fatback and makes it last longer (which was handy before the dawn of refrigeration).

But in modern times, salt pork has a wider definition. Salt pork refers to cured pork meat, typically from the pork belly. Salt pork looks like uncured bacon but it’s generally fattier than bacon and it’s not smoked.

Are pork belly and fatback the same thing?

Pork belly and fatback are not the same thing. As mentioned earlier, fatback is the fat taken from the back of the pig while pork belly is down below, on the belly of the pig. The fat from the fatback and the pork belly taste the same.

The other difference is the meat. Pork belly has meat (like bacon) whereas fatback is pure fat. (Am I the only one thinking of crunching into some crispy fatback right now?)

Now that we’ve covered a few differences between fatback, salt pork and pork belly, you might wonder how interchangeable these similar, fatty ingredients are.

What substitutions can I use for fatback?  

Before deciding which substitutions you can make, you first must know how the fatback will be used.

For many recipes, you can replace fatback with pork belly, cured or uncured bacon, pancetta or salt pork. If you use salt pork as a substitute, you may need to blanche it in water to decrease the saltiness (depending on your recipe).

For recipes where the fatback is used to contain or surround other parts of the dish—with terrines or pâtés, for example—you can use caul fat, prosciutto or thin slices of bacon. Or you can forgo the liner entirely and rely on plastic wrap to ease the terrine out of its dish.

If you’re working with a recipe that tells you to work the fatback into a paste—such as with a cassoulet—you can substitute lard. Probably duck fat too, if you have some of that in your fridge. (I do; I couldn’t resist buying it, even though I have litres of bacon grease in my fridge.)

But never use vegetable shortening instead of fatback; vegetable oils, shortening and margarine are unnatural and inflammatory. [This isn’t a health site but if you want to know more about why to stay away from vegetable oils, check out Nina Teicholz’s video called, Vegetable Oils: The Unknown Story.]

Where can I buy fatback?

Now that you know for certain that you can eat fatback and that it’s included in recipes from around the world, you might want to start adding it to your own kitchen routine. But first, you’ll have to find a source at either your grocery store or butcher.

I never looked for fatback in my grocery store before I really knew what it was. But once I started to explore the fringe areas of the meat sections (where I also found cod liver in its own oil), I discovered little packs of fatback. They were the size of a pack of cigarettes and cheap, maybe $1 per pound. That made each package $1 or less. This was in a Freshco in Ontario, by the way, and Freshco is great for Canadian meat lovers, in my experience.

My guess is that you won’t find fatback in many grocery stores.

But you’ll always find it at your local butcher shop so head over there to rustle some up. You probably won’t see it out front so take your number and ask the meat hawker when it’s your turn at the counter.

I might be imagining it, but I think the meat hawker looked at me with respect when I asked him for fatback. Like we were in on the same fatty and delicious secret.

But still, even with all the love for fatback, you might be wondering…

Is eating fatback healthy?

That depends on who you ask. I take my nutritional advice from low carb renegades who emphasize eating animal fats and proteins and avoiding processed foods, sugar and seed oils. These folks would say fatback is healthy. Many dietitians and professionals who follow the Canada Food Guide or the US food pyramid would say the opposite.

Remember, this isn’t a health site, it’s about the world of forcemeat in all its glory. But for more information on the health effects of eating animal fat, check out the nutrition renegades page (COMING SOON!) where I show you where to find nutrition information that goes against the grain.

Conclusion

I leave the health ruling to you. But in the meantime, just know that I feel great every time I eat fatback and its fatty substitutes from the most magical animal of them all.

And finally, if you’re interested in fatback from a cultural perspective, I recommend reading this short article called, Chewing the Fatback: A worldly food with a salty reputation. It’s about how fatback is appreciated in the southern states.