When I first explored confit, I had a vague idea that it involved duck legs and fat. Since then, I’ve learned more about what confit is (not just duck legs!) and I wanted to put together a helpful article for you. Together, let’s explore the world of confit and how to preserve meats the yummy French way.

This beginner’s guide to confit covers these topics:

• What is confit?
• Where does confit come from?
• What meats can you use in confit?
• What fats can you use in confit?
• What meats and fat aren’t good for confit?
• What vegetables can you confit?
• How does confit preserve meat?
• How to store confit.
• How long does confit meat last?
• Does confit meat become tastier as it ages?
• Is confit meat fatty when serving?
• What’s the difference between rillettes and confit?
• Are rillons confit?
• How can confit help me host an instant dinner party?
• How to make confit: General principles.
• Confit troubleshooting: What to do if your confit is too salty.
• Bonus confit idea: Confit egg yolks.
• Confit recipes for your consideration.

What I love about confit is it seems fancy and complicated but it’s easy and satisfying. Let’s get started on learning about what confit is and how to incorporate it into our kitchen repertoire.

Bonus infographic included: How to make confit: General principles

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What is confit?

In Garde Manger: The Art and Craft of the Cold Kitchen, Fourth Edition, The Culinary Institute of America defines confit as, “Preserved meat (usually goose, duck, or pork) cooked and preserved in its own fat.”

The word confit is used to describe the cooking method and the final preserved product. The confit cooking method is salting a fatty piece of meat and then slow cooking it in fat. According to Anne Willan, in her book, Regional French Cooking, “Goose is normally cooked in goose fat, which can be bought in tins, duck in duck fat and pork in lard. However, lard can be used for everything, or fat left from previous confits can be reused after straining, although after three or four cycles it becomes too salty.”

During the slow cooking, the water in the meat and skin evaporates and the gelatinous bits from the skin and bones separate from the cooking fat. The meat itself retains its flavour during this cooking process.

At the end of the confit cooking method, you’re left with confit. Duck, chicken, turkey confit, etc. This confit is the cooked meat and the fat it’s cooked in, which then becomes the fat it’s stored in.

Where does confit come from?

Confit originates from Gascony in the south of France. Besides the fact it’s delicious, it’s also a historic survival food. According to Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman, in their book, Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie, “Before refrigeration, families would put up enough confit to last through a winter and store it on some cool, out-of-the-way shelf.”

What meats can you use in confit?

Confit is most often associated with birds—duck and goose confit are the most famous of all confit. But you can use many types of meat to make confit. This includes duck, goose, turkey, chicken, pork, rabbit, bacon, salmon, lamb and beef. Usually you keep the meat in large pieces when making confit (large like duck legs or even up to the whole bird).

In his book, The River Cottage Meat Book, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says, “In theory, most kinds of meat could be made into a confit, but the technique achieves the greatest success when applied to ducks and geese. This is because they carry so much fat that no extra is required for the cooking or covering of the meat.”

A quick search reveals that beef confit isn’t so popular. (I tried to make beef confit out of lean stew beef and the meat turned out as hard as rocks but in my defense, I hadn’t learned anything about confit yet.)

You can use bacon to make confit, but you won’t find too many recipes for bacon confit. But I did find this one on RL Reeves Jr’s Scrumptious Chef site called, Recipe for Duroc Bacon Confit With Farm Grits And Fried Eggs.

What fats can you use in confit?

The best fats to use in confit are duck fat, goose fat, lard and chicken fat (schmaltz). This is partly because these fats are easily accessible if you regularly cook duck or goose, which are extremely fatty meats. Plus, if you live a high-fat, meaty lifestyle, you’ve probably got mason jars of lard and/or bacon grease filling your fridge.

You can also use olive oil or vegetable oil for confit (but please read the next section where I tell you why vegetable oil is a bad idea).

What meats and fat aren’t good for confit?

As mentioned earlier, the most common meats to use in confit are pork and poultry, though people seem to be fond of using rabbit too (probably because it’s so lean naturally and the confit counteracts this). When you’re starting out, stick to these tried and true meats for confit. Once you get a feel for confit, you can branch out into non-traditional confit options. For example, The Great British Chefs site has a recipe for Confit shoulder of organic lamb, poached plum tomatoes, French beans and potato purée. (Note that this recipe calls for one litre of duck fat as the confit fat, not lamb fat!!!)

Vegetable seed oils—called soybean, canola, peanut, safflower, cottonseed, vegetable oil, etc.—are industrial oils. As Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise says, “[Animal foods] are natural, whole fats. By comparison, vegetable oils are highly processed industrial products that were only introduced to the American diet in the early 1900s. There’s quite a lot of worrisome data on vegetable oils, especially when they’re heated (in my book, chapter 9).  So for reasons of practicality and health, a higher fat diet should include animal foods.”

[For more information on why you might like to run screaming from industrial vegetable oils, watch Nina’s talk at Low Carb Down Under, Nina Teicholz – ‘Vegetable Oils: The Unknown Story’ or buy her excellent book, The Big Fat Surprise.]

What vegetables can you confit?

You can confit a variety of vegetables including garlic, onions, tomatoes, potatoes (and other root vegetables), mushrooms and zucchini.

There’s even a recipe for bacon and grape confit in my Garde Manger cookbook (mentioned earlier). You can find other fruit confit recipes but the ones I looked at were not confit in the traditional sense as they weren’t cooked in fat. Except the bacon and grape confit.

How does confit preserve meat?

Confit is preserved in three ways. First, it’s salted. Second, it’s cooked low and slow while submerged in fat. This keeps the meat moist and tender, yet also removes excess moisture from the meat. Third, it’s stored in fat, which keeps air away from the meat.

According to the Serious Eats article, What The Heck is Confit?, “The fat’s true purpose in a confit is twofold: temperature regulation, and creating an environment inhospitable to bacterial growth if preservation is the goal.” [They also say you can confit chicken wings and that sounds like a fab idea to me!]

How to store confit

To store confit, you put the confit meat in a non-porous container and pour your melted fat over top of it until the meat is completely covered. If there’s not enough melted fat leftover from the cooking process, you’ll need to melt more of your lard stash from the fridge.

If you use a tall container—like a one-litre mason jar—you’ll probably need less fat than if you use a short, wide container.

To use the confit, some people say you can warm up the entire storage vessel just until you’re able to pluck the meat out of it easily. This sounds like a good idea and I know from experience that it’s no fun wrestling a chicken leg out of solid fat.

However, Jane Grigson, in her book, Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery, disagrees. She says, “Although one can in theory use large jars, and remove the preserved meat over a period of time at intervals, I have never pushed this too far. I use lidded stoneware storage jars of the kind sold widely in household bazaars in France, of a size to hold about six or seven pieces of meat, or even less.”

Jane also recommends packing the meat until two inches from the top of the jar, filling the jar with fat right up the brim and placing a layer of tin foil onto the fat after it hardens. This seems to be instead of a lid. You can probably just use a lid so long as the meat is entirely covered by the cooled fat.

How long does confit meat last?

Confit is preserving technique invented long before the refrigerator. In their book, Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie, Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman say, “Gascony … is the spiritual home of … confit. In Gascony, confit was more than a great way to prepare goose and duck—it meant survival. Before refrigeration, families would put up enough confit to last throught the winter … they wouldn’t eat this confit during the upcoming winter … They would eat the confit from the previous year only once they’d put up a new batch, to ensure that they had enough food for this year and the next.”

In more modern times, this approach still works. In his book, The River Cottage Meat Book, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says, “With this protective covering [of fat], and in a sealed jar, a confit can keep for months or even a year or two without refrigeration.”

For beginners like us, it’s probably better to test out confit storage for a couple weeks or a month at a time. This will help us accept the idea that it’s safe to store confit for months on end. Especially in the fridge!  

Does confit meat become tastier as it ages?

Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman (in the same book mentioned above) say, “Confit stays good for months and months—indeed it gets better with time.”

However, some people don’t believe this and I don’t have enough experience to share a valid opinion. In the article, Duck Confit: Does It Get Better With Time?, Tracey Shepos Cenami did a blind taste test for six people (including herself) with duck leg confit. One was aged four weeks and one was fresh. Four out of the six participants chose the aged confit. Obviously this is a ridiculous sample size for a study but she did it for fun and it does give us some ideas, even if they’re not scientifically validated!

Is confit meat fatty when serving?

Cooking the meat in fat means the meat doesn’t dry out; it doesn’t mean that all the fat gets absorbed into the meat. Confit meat doesn’t feel any fattier than it would with other methods. Scrape off the excess fat before re-heating the confit so your meat isn’t swimming in fat (though there’s nothing wrong with that). Once it’s warmed through, you can put it under the broiler to crisp up the skin. Crispy and non-crispy skin are the same fattiness but crispy is more enjoyable.

What’s the difference between rillettes and confit?

Confit is meat cooked in fat and served whole. Rillettes are meat and fat cooked with a little water (that magically evaporates), shredded and served as a chunky spread.

Rillettes and confit are similar in that they both “seem fancy” but are super-duper easy to make. Probably why I love them!

Are rillons confit?

Rillons—also known as rillauds and rillots—are similar to confit but not quite the same. With rillons, you brown the pork belly (unnecessary for confit), then cook slowly in fat (like confit) or fat and wine (unlike confit). Rillons can also be caramelized with a bit of sugar before serving. As with confit, rillons are typically served hot.

In her book, French Regional Cooking, Anne Willan says, “Rillons are cooked only until tender, not soft.” So, in this way, rillons are more like confit than rillettes.

How can confit help me host an instant dinner party?

Confit is great because you have fully prepared food on standby. When you have confit in the fridge, and someone drops by unexpectedly, you can whip up a quick batch of rillettes by warming the meat and some of the fat and then mixing them together with a wooden spoon or with your stand mixer and paddle attachment. Serve with crackers and gherkins for a quick snack.

For instant dinners, you can warm the confit pieces, crisp them up under the broiler and serve with some crusty bread. And a salad if you like. Or open a can of white beans, add some onions, tomatoes and spices, and mix in some shredded confit.

The options are limited only by your imagination and your pantry. But whatever you have on hand, adding some confit meat to it increases the impressiveness and deliciousness of your thrown-together snack or meal.

How to make confit: General principles

As I mentioned earlier, confit is easy to make. It’s great to follow the recipe you’re using, of course, but I wanted to let you know the general principles here to get you started.

Making confit, step 1 – Salt, spice, set aside

Mix your salt, spices and aromatics together and massage this mix onto the meat. Put the seasoned meat into a Ziploc baggie or a lidded dish and refrigerate for eight hours up to three days, preferably a full 24 hours of marinating.

Making confit, step 2 – Remove the excess marinade

When your meat is finished marinating, scrape off the excess marinade or rinse the meat off under the tap. You can rinse the meat over a colander to capture the excess spices to use in the cooking.

Making confit, step 3 – Heat the fat and pre-heat the oven

Pre-heat your oven and gently warm the fat until it’s all melted. Oven temperatures for cooking confit range from 200°F (93°C) to 300°F (150°C).  The Garde Manger’s duck confit recipe includes simmering the meat on the stovetop so if you’re using that recipe, you can skip pre-heating the oven. I’d suggest the oven method though as it’s easier to maintain the temperature that way, plus I don’t like the idea of a simmering pot of fat on the stove.

Making confit, step 4 – Combine the meat, melted fat and saved spices

You can either put the meat into the melted fat or put the meat into another pot and pour the melted fat over the meat. Choose a pot that allows you to fit the meat into it snugly. Make sure the meat is entirely submerged in the fat. If not, melt more fat and add it to the pot. If you’ve captured any spices/aromatics from the rinsing stage, throw these into the pot too.

Making confit, step 5 – Cook for hours

Cook your confit in the oven for hours. If your recipe calls for cooking at 200°F, you can expect the cooking time to be four to six hours. If your recipe calls for cooking at 300°F, you can expect the cooking time to be around two hours.

Three ways to know the meat is done:  

• No liquid escapes when you pierce the meat with a skewer or knife.
• The fat is no longer cloudy; it’s clear.
• The meat is on the bottom of the pan, not floating.

Making confit, step 6 – Store the confit

Put the meat in a heat-proof container (as discussed above) and pour the melted fat over top until the meat is completely submerged. There will also be some gelatin in the melted fat; try not to pour that into the meat container (instead, save that for another time when you need a flavour boost).

Once the container is cool enough to move, put it in the fridge without the lid. Once it’s cooled completely, put the lid on.

Making confit, step 7 – Serve the confit

To serve the confit, remove the meat from the fat, scrape off the extra fat and heat gently. You can do this on the stovetop or oven. Once the meat is heated, broil for a minute or two to make the skin crispy. Serve with the rest of your dinner. Yum!

Confit troubleshooting: What to do if your confit is too salty

Confit can be too salty if:

• You added too much salt to the marinade.
• You marinated the meat too long.
• You didn’t rinse the meat well enough before cooking.

Don’t despair! Even if your confit is too salty to eat a whole piece, you can still salvage it.

What to do with too-salty confit:

• Make rillettes to enjoy it in bite-sized pieces; cut the saltiness with a cracker or bread. You might want to use a separate batch of fat instead of the confit fat if the confit fat seems too salty.
• Make a broth out of it.
• Shred it and add it to a bean or lentil stew.
• Shred it and use as a sandwich spread.

On Reddit’s Ask Culinary page, buttunz says this about what to do with over-salted confit, “Any application you’d use bacon for. Mac and cheese? Our plate du jour is duck confit gouda mac and cheese with grated black truffle. Spinach salad? Try our duck confit twist on the classic supper club salad. Salted duck cheeseburger, cured duck whipped potatoes, duck confit lettuce wraps with pickled watermelon and fresh jicama… the list goes on. Think of that shit as an addition rather than a main dish.”

Bonus confit idea: Confit egg yolks

Great British Chefs, in their article, How to confit egg yolks say, “Confiting egg yolks is a more modern technique, great for adding a little cheffy flair to home-cooked dishes.” In this simple recipe, they use olive oil to confit the egg yolks.

Some recipes call for the sous-vide method—putting the egg yolks in a plastic bag full of oil. However, at Chef Steps, in their Perfect Yolks article, they go for a plastic-free, sous-vide; they put the oil and eggs in a pan and then put that pan in (what I would call) a water bath.

While most of the recipes I saw called for olive oil, you can also use lard. Though you might want to store the confit egg yolks two per container to make breaking them less likely as you dig them out of semi-solid fat.

Confit recipes for your consideration

Now that you’re more familiar with confit than you were before, you might want to try it out for yourself!

If you own one of these books, follow their confit recipes:

• The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
• Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie by Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman.
• French Regional Cooking by Anne Willan.

Otherwise head to the internet!

Here are some confit recipes I found interesting though I haven’t tried these ones (yet):

• Duck Confit with Spicy Pickled Raisins from Bon Appetit – I don’t eat raisins anymore and yet (or because of, ha ha), I found this dish rather alluring.
• Crisp Chicken Confit from My Recipes – Using chicken instead of duck is a frugal way to get started on your confit adventure.
• Pork Confit by Epicurious – Rabbie from Leesburg, VA says about this recipe, “Love this! Pork Confit has become a staple in our house since trying this recipe … Absolutely amazing.”

Conclusion

So, there you have it: confit is practical, easy and delicious. Why not add it to your kitchen repertoire this week and see how you like it? If nothing else, you’ll be relieved to have some meat on hand when you don’t feel like slaving away in the kitchen after work. Wishing you all the best on your confit adventures!

Download the Confit General Principles infographic here!

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