Confit and confiture are French food terms, one associated with meat, one associated with sweet. But what exactly are they, what makes them different and does one have a double meaning? If your inquiring mind needs to know the answers, you’re in the right place. I’ve put together this helpful article to answer these questions and more.  

So … what’s the difference between confit and confiture?

Confit and confiture are French words based on the verb confire, to preserve. In cooking, we use confit to describe meat—generally poultry or pork—slow cooked in fat (lard, duck or goose fat), that can be preserved for months or years. In baking, confit is candied fruit, cooked and preserved in sugar. Confiture is the French word for jam, preserves or marmalade but we also say confiture in English.

Now you know the basic differences, let’s dig deeper into what confit is in cooking and baking and discover more about confiture. Plus, I’ve put the differences between confit (meats), confit (sweets) and confiture into a handy chart for you.

What is (meat) confit?

As I mentioned earlier, confit is a French word based on the verb to preserve. But like many words, we’ve integrated this French word into English, in both the cooking and baking world.

But before we get to what the meaty kind of confit actually is, let’s take a moment to make sure we’re saying it correctly. Confit is pronounced con-fee and confited (as in the anglicized, “Do you want some confited chicken wings for dinner?”) is pronounced con-feed.

Confit describes both the cooking method and the final preserved product.

The confit cooking method is a slow-cooking method where you cook meat—typically poultry or pork—in animal fat at a low temperature for hours. The fat comes from the meat you cook, or you add it, as necessary. If you need additional fat, you can use duck or goose fat or lard.

Fatty birds such as duck and goose and fatty cuts of pork don’t typically need extra cooking fat as they’re plenty fatty enough. However, leaner birds and pork cuts need additional fat for cooking and preserving.   

Confit is a traditional French method for preserving meats and it was invented in the Gascony region of France.

In their book, Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie, Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman say, “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.”

The basic method for making (meat) confit:

• Marinate the meat with salt and other aromatics (from eight hours to three days).
• Put meat, additional fat (as necessary) and water, stock or wine in a pot that’s small enough so the meat fits snugly.
• Cook low and slow for a few hours (at the end of cooking, the fat is clear, and the meat sinks to the bottom of your cooking vessel).
• Store the meat in glass or stoneware jars and cover the contents entirely with a layer of fat (this keeps the air out, one of the main reasons the preservation works).
• Enjoy your confit for weeks and/or months.

Confit is tasty and, because of this slow cooking process, it ends up very tender. If you cook your poultry legs long enough, they’ll become fall-off-the-bone tender. Of course, you don’t have to cook them that long if you’d prefer they don’t fall apart as you serve them.

[For more information on this type of confit cooking, read my lengthy article, Confit: Preserving Yummy Meats the French Way. And if you’re not sure about the health implications of eating this fatty, delicious food borne in old-timey France, check out another one of my articles, Is Confit Cooking Healthy? The Pros, Cons & Alternatives.]

What foods can be confited (the meaty way)?

Confit isn’t as versatile as other cooking methods such as braising and deep frying, but you can basically confit one whole animal (the pig) and half of another (the birds). Quite a few options if you like eating in that arena.

[By the way, if you’d like to see how versatile braising and deep frying are, check out my articles What’s the Difference Between Confit & Deep Frying?and What’s the Difference Between Confit & Braising? You can skip the parts about confit in those articles as it’s covered here.]  

Foods that work great for confit:

• Duck legs.
• Chicken legs.
• Turkey legs.
• Goose legs.
• Legs of any poultry.
• Wings of any poultry.
• Poultry gizzards.
• Pork loin.
• Pork belly.
• Pork shoulder.
• Any part of the pig!
• Vegetables including fennel, squash, cauliflower, onion, garlic, etc. (To confit vegetables, you use olive oil (not animal fat). Confit vegetables aren’t a true preserve (unless you can them) so expect them to only keep a couple weeks in the fridge.)

When we think of confit, we first think of duck legs. And if we’re new to confit, we might not think of any other options! But as mentioned in the list above, the whole pig is at your disposal when it comes to confit.

Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn extol the virtues of pork confit in their book, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking & Curing. They say, “Pork is excellent for confit … Actually, any part of the pig can be confited with excellent results. Confited belly and shoulder are rare treats in the home kitchen, extraordinary for their succulence and flavor.”

Confit can be gently heated up before serving. If you’re heating up confit legs, finish them under the broiler to crisp up the skin. Confit can be served with just about anything including roast potatoes, salad, cassoulet, etc.

What is (fruit) confit?

Confit is a way of cooking and preserving fruit in a sweet syrup.

According to Les Fleurons D’apt, in their article, From Orchard to Candied Fruit, “The candying process is to replace water contained in the fruit by sugar.”

Replacing the water in the fruit with sugar water is what preserves the fruit confit. This isn’t one of those areas in baking where you can cut down on sugar too much, because, as with jam, the sugar serves a purpose.

In the Serious Eats article, Ask The Food Lab: What The Heck is Confit?, author J. Kenji López-Alt, talks about why sugar levels are important in confit. He says, “Sugar syrups in low concentrations are a good medium for bacteria, while higher concentrations become increasingly more hostile.”

Like meat confit, fruit confit can last for years.  

The basic method for making (sweet) confit:

• Heat the cooking liquid and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Your liquid can include sweet wine or port, if you like.
• Trim your fruit, add it to the cooking liquid and cook until the fruit softens up (but don’t let it go mushy). This cooking time can be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, depending on the fruit you use and how large the pieces of fruit are.
• Sterilize some glass jars.
• Remove the fruit and put it into the sterilized jars. If the syrup isn’t as thick as you’d like, let it simmer for a while longer.
• Add the syrup over the fruit in the glass jars. (Note: just because you sterilize the jars doesn’t mean you’re canning the fruit; that would also require boiling the filled jars in a water bath.)
• Store in your fridge.

Even though fruit confit can last for years, not all recipes indicate this. Some indicate the fruit confit will last a year, some indicate it lasts for a couple weeks in the fridge. If you’re looking for long-term preservation, look for a recipe that specifies this.

What do I eat fruit confit with?

The black cherry confit made by L’Epicurien, a French artisanal jam company, leaves no question. Right on the label it says, “For sheep’s cheese.”

In the Fig Confit recipe on her Cuisine Fiend website, food blogger Anna Gaze says, “Fig confit is the nicest possible condiment to have with cheese, cold beef, charcuterie, sausages, meatloaf, ploughman’s sandwich, cheese…”

Of course, you could also serve it with crackers, toast, pâté en terrine, ice cream, whipped cream and anything else that captures your imagination. Plus, it would likely go great with meat confit as fruit confit is light and the sweetness would compliment the richness of the meat confit. A dollop of fruit confit beside a crispy duck leg … yum.

What is confiture?

According to Dictionary.com, confiture is “a confection; a preserve, as of fruit.”

The Google English dictionary, provided by Oxford Languages, gets a little more detailed, defining confiture as, “a preparation made by preserving fruit with sugar; jam or marmalade.”

As I mentioned earlier, confiture is a French word that gets translated into jam, preserves or marmalade. But we also adopt this French word into English and say confiture, though that’s much less common than saying jam. We don’t say peanut butter and confiture sandwich, for example.

In the article, The Taxonomy of Jams, Preserves, and Confitures, on the Food52 site, Cathy Barrow—aka Mrs. Wheelbarrow—says, “Whole or elegantly sliced fruit suspended in syrup is a confiture, which comes from the French verb confire, meaning “to preserve.” In confitures, the fruit is shown to great advantage, glistening in a clear gel; the texture tends to be looser than that of jam.”

You’ll see from this quote that confiture is quite similar to how fruit confit is described, except the fruit is not suspended in syrup with confit. Confiture is more gelled than confit.

So, it’s easy to understand why Mrs. Wheelbarrow says she uses “the words “jam,” “confiture,” and “preserves” interchangeably.”

The basic method for making confiture:

• Put your fruit in a pot with sugar.
• Simmer the fruit and sugar until the fruit is softened. This could take between 20 minutes and 60 minutes, depending on the size of your fruit and how thick you want your confiture.
• Add spices and flavourings such as cinnamon, almond extract, etc. (According to your recipe, of course).
• Add gelatin or pectin (optional, depending on your recipe).
• Put in jars and let cool.  

By the way, there’s also a thing called confiture de lait which seems like the French version of dulce de leche. If this interests you, check out the Confiture de Lait recipe on the Meilleur du Chef website.

What do I eat confiture with?

Since confiture is basically fruit jam, it goes well with much of the same things as jam would. However, to get you started with ideas, I put together a list for you.

Foods to eat with confiture:

• Hot meat such as a crispy duck leg, roast beef, pork belly, sausages, etc.
• Cold meat such as charcuterie, pâté, terrines, as part of a ploughman’s lunch, etc.
• Bread, crackers, waffles, crêpes or pancakes.
• Sweets such as ice cream, whipped cream, strawberry shortcake, cheesecake, etc.
• Breakfast foods such as yoghurt, oatmeal or bacon and eggs (to add a lively visual element).

Really, the only limit to what foods you can eat with confiture is your imagination.

What’s the difference between confit (cooking), confit (baking) and confiture?

The differences between meat confit, fruit confit and confiture include what they are, ingredients, cooking method, serving temperature and time.

The differences between confit (meat), confit (fruit) and confiture

	Confit (meat)	Confit (fruit)	Confiture
What it is	A cooking method and the result of that cooking method: poultry or pork preserved in fat.	Preserved fruit in a sugary syrup.	Preserved fruit suspended in a sugary jelly.
Ingredients	Meat (poultry legs, wings, gizzards or pork belly, shoulder, ribs and any other part of the pig). Fat (lard, duck or goose fat). Spices and aromatics. Water, stock or wine.	Fruit. Sugar. Water. Spices or lemon juice (optional). Wine (optional).	Fruit. Sugar. Spices/herbs (optional). Gelatin or pectin (optional).
The purpose	To cook meat until tender and preserve it in its own fat.	To preserve fruit.	To preserve fruit.
Cooking method	In a low oven (200°F (93°C) to 300°F (150°C)).	On the stove top.	On the stove top.
Serving temperature	Hot.	Cold.	Cold.
Cooking time required	Two to six hours.	Between 10 minutes and 60 minutes.	Between 20 minutes and 60 minutes.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all for now. Meat confit, fruit confit and confiture are all the fabulous end results of preservation techniques. And they can even be eaten together—if you get such a craving! May your meat confit be tender, may your sweet confit be satisfying and may your confiture find happiness as a meaningful part of your peanut butter and confiture sandwich!