Best Beef Tallow for French Fries (2026): 5 Picks by Pot Size

Bottom line: The best beef tallow for french fries is one you can buy in enough volume to cover the fries: the 100% Pure Grass Fed Beef Tallow (4 lbs) for most home cooks, Cornhusker Kitchen’s 7.5 lb grass-fed tub if you own a full-size fryer, and South Chicago Packing Wagyu (42 oz) when you want the richest-tasting fries. Fry twice, at 325°F and then 375°F.

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There is a reason people over 40 get misty-eyed talking about McDonald’s fries. From the 1950s until 1990, McDonald’s cooked its french fries in a blend that was mostly beef tallow. The result was a fry so crispy, so golden, and so deeply savory that it became the defining fast-food experience of an entire generation.

Then they switched to vegetable oil. The fries were never the same.

I have spent months trying to recreate that experience at home. The technique is covered in our tallow french fries guide; this page is about which tallow to buy and how much of it you need.

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Why McDonald’s Used Beef Tallow (And Why They Stopped)

McDonald’s fried its fries in a blend often reported as about 93% beef tallow and 7% cottonseed oil. The fat did three things for the fries.

Flavor. Tallow adds a mild, savory beef note that neutral seed oils do not. On a plain salted potato, it is easy to taste.

Texture. Tallow is solid at room temperature, so the thin film of fat left on a drained fry sets as it cools slightly. The fries feel less oily and hold their crunch a little longer than fries cooked in liquid oil.

Color. Tallow fries brown to a deep, even gold.

Starting in the late 1980s, businessman Phil Sokolof ran full-page newspaper ads criticizing fast-food chains for frying in beef fat, and in 1990 McDonald’s switched to vegetable oil. The nutrition debate about saturated fat and seed oils is still active, but on flavor, most people who try tallow fries prefer them.

You can cook fries in tallow at home; the main decision is which tallow, and how much.

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Quick Picks: Best Tallow Brands for French Fries

Check current price on each listing.

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1. 100% Pure Grass Fed Beef Tallow (4 lbs) — Best Overall for Fries

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This is the tallow I reach for every time I make fries at home, and it is the one I recommend to everyone who asks.

The 4-pound tub gives you enough volume for about 1.5 inches of fat in a large Dutch oven, or to fill a compact countertop fryer. That matters because the number one mistake people make with tallow fries is not using enough fat. If your fries are sitting on the bottom of the pot instead of floating freely, you will get soggy, greasy results no matter what brand you use.

Flavor in the fryer: The fries came out with that unmistakable beefy sweetness that makes tallow fries legendary. Not overpowering — you still taste the potato first — but there is a depth and richness that vegetable oil simply cannot produce. My taste testers described it as “the way fries are supposed to taste.”

Smoke point performance: I measured consistent performance at 400F before visible smoke. That gives you a comfortable buffer above the 375F target for the second fry. The oil stayed clear and clean through three complete fry sessions.

Reusability: After straining through a fine-mesh sieve, this tallow came back looking and performing almost like new for the next batch. I got four full fry sessions before noticing any degradation in color or flavor.

If you want the full step-by-step process for making fries in tallow, our complete guide to making beef tallow french fries at home covers every detail.

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2. Cornhusker Kitchen Grass-Fed Beef Tallow (7.5 lbs) — Best for a Countertop Fryer

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A full-size countertop fryer needs 6 to 8 pounds of fat, which is more than one 4-pound tub. Cornhusker Kitchen’s 7.5 lb grass-fed tallow fills it in one purchase and leaves some for topping up as the level drops between sessions. If you make fries every week, this is the practical buy. More in our Cornhusker Kitchen review.

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3. South Chicago Packing Wagyu — Best-Tasting Fries

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For the best-tasting fries I have made, the wagyu tallow from South Chicago Packing wins. Its higher monounsaturated fat content gives fries a smoother, more buttery flavor than standard tallow.

The 42-ounce tub holds enough for a saucepan batch, which is rare for a premium product, but the price per ounce makes it a special-occasion choice. See our South Chicago Packing review.

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4. Cornhusker Kitchen Beef Tallow Tub (1.5 lbs) — Best Budget Starter

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If you are making tallow fries for the first time, a 1.5 lb tub is the cheapest way in. It gives you about an inch of fat in a small saucepan, which is enough for one or two servings fried in small batches.

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5. Fatworks Grass-Fed Beef Tallow (14 oz) — Best for Small Batches

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Fatworks is well rendered and easy to find, including in two-jar packs at Costco, but a 14 oz jar will not fill a pot. Use it for shallow-fried potatoes, oven fries tossed in melted tallow, or topping up a fryer. Our Fatworks review has more.

A note on Traverse Bay: its deodorized tallow is sold by a bath-and-body supplier for soap making, so buy a tallow sold as a food product for your fries.

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How Much Tallow You Need per Batch of Fries

Buy by the size of your pot. Fries need to float freely, with at least an inch of fat around them, and more fat means the temperature recovers faster when cold potatoes go in.

Strained and refrigerated between sessions, a batch of tallow typically lasts several rounds of fries, so the first purchase covers more than one night. See how to reuse beef tallow after frying.

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What Makes a Tallow Good for Fries

• Food-grade and single-ingredient. The label should say beef tallow and nothing else.
• Clean rendering. Well-filtered tallow smokes around 400°F, comfortably above the 375°F second fry. Tallow with visible sediment smokes sooner.
• Flavor level. Standard tallow gives a mild beef note; wagyu tallow is richer and more buttery; grass-fed tallow is slightly more savory than grain-fed.
• Volume for the price. Fries use pounds of fat, so tubs beat jars on cost per batch.

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How to Fry Them (Short Version)

Cut russets about 1/4 inch thick, soak them in cold water, dry them completely, then fry twice: about 5-6 minutes at 325°F to cook the inside, rest, then 2-3 minutes at 375°F to crisp and brown. Salt immediately. Our step-by-step tallow french fries guide covers potato choice, timing, and troubleshooting, and the McDonald’s-style recipe recreates the classic. For temperatures across other fried foods, see our beef tallow for frying guide.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of tallow did McDonald’s use for fries?

McDonald’s used a blend of beef tallow and a small percentage of cottonseed oil, commonly reported as about 93% tallow, until 1990. The tallow provided the signature flavor. The chain switched to vegetable oil in 1990 following public pressure about saturated fat and heart disease. Our McDonald’s-style tallow fries recipe recreates the method at home.

How much tallow do I need for french fries?

Plan on 3 to 4 pounds for a compact countertop fryer or a large saucepan, and 5 to 6 pounds for 2 inches of fat in a 5.5 qt Dutch oven. A full-size fryer takes 6 to 8 pounds. Frying in small batches lets you get away with less fat. See our beef tallow for frying guide for a full chart.

Can I mix tallow with other oils for frying?

You can, and McDonald’s did, with a small share of cottonseed oil. A blend keeps most of the tallow flavor, but adding a high-polyunsaturated oil reduces tallow’s stability in the fryer. I prefer 100% tallow; if you are short, blending with lard is a better stretch than blending with canola.

Why do my tallow fries taste greasy?

Three likely causes: your oil temperature was too low, you overloaded the pot with too many fries at once, or you did not dry the potatoes thoroughly before frying. Temperature is the most common culprit. If the tallow is below 300F when the potatoes go in, they absorb fat instead of frying in it.

Are tallow fries healthier than fries cooked in vegetable oil?

Tallow is low in polyunsaturated fat, so it forms fewer oxidation byproducts than oils like soybean or corn oil when heated for long periods. It is also high in saturated fat, which current dietary guidelines still recommend limiting. For fries, how often you eat them matters more than the fat. See beef tallow vs vegetable oil for the full comparison. Our guide on tallow nutrition covers this in more detail.

How many times can I reuse tallow for fries?

With proper straining and storage, quality tallow can handle 4 to 6 frying sessions. The key is filtering out all food particles after each use and storing the strained tallow in the refrigerator. Discard when the color darkens significantly, the smell changes, or it foams excessively when heated.

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Bottom Line

If you want french fries that taste the way they did before every restaurant switched to vegetable oil, cooking in beef tallow is the answer.

Best overall: 100% Pure Grass Fed Beef Tallow (4 lbs) gives you the quality, volume, and smoke point to make restaurant-caliber fries at home. It is what I use every week, and it is what I recommend first.

Best for a countertop fryer: Cornhusker Kitchen Grass-Fed (7.5 lbs).

Best-tasting: South Chicago Packing Wagyu (42 oz).

Best budget: Cornhusker Kitchen Beef Tallow Tub (1.5 lbs) gets you into tallow fries at the lowest cost.

For frying beyond fries, see our beef tallow for frying guide and the french fries in tallow page.

Buy enough tallow to fill your pot, then follow the step-by-step tallow fries guide for the double fry at 325°F and 375°F.