Duck confit substitutes

The real technique applied to cheap chicken, and by far the best substitute available in an ordinary kitchen.

Best for

cassoulet, lentil and white bean dishes, bistro salads, hash and rillettes, shredded meat for tacos or sandwiches, crisped and served with potatoes

This is not an imitation of confit, it is confit made with a different bird, which is why it works so well. Rub the thighs with three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt per pound plus a crushed garlic clove, a bay leaf and a few thyme sprigs, refrigerate uncovered overnight, rinse and pat dry, then submerge them in melted duck fat, goose fat or even plain neutral oil in a small ovenproof dish and cook at 275F until a fork slides in with no resistance. What is different from duck is that chicken tastes lighter and cleaner, without duck's dark iron-rich depth, and it takes half the time. Refrigerate it and eat it within about five days, or freeze it. Treat this as a cooked dish that lives in the fridge, not as a shelf-stable preserve.

Plain duck legs cooked long and low in their own fat, which is closer to confit than most people expect and needs no jar of fat at all.

Best for

cassoulet, plated duck leg dishes, salads and grain bowls, duck ragu and pasta, tacos and buns

The single easiest route if duck legs are available. Salt them well, leave them in the fridge overnight if you can, then roast them skin up on a rack at 300F for about two hours until the meat pulls from the bone and the skin is crisp and brown. The result has confit's shreddable texture and its rich duck flavour, and it renders half a cup of fat you can keep. What is missing is the specific dense, almost cured quality that comes from a day in salt and hours submerged in fat, which makes true confit more concentrated and firmer. For most recipes you would not notice.

The pork route, which replaces the confit's function in a pot of beans rather than its flavour.

Best for

cassoulet, white bean and lentil stews, long-simmered bean pots, choucroute, greens and beans

Take this seriously rather than treating it as a fallback. In a cassoulet the confit is supplying fat, salt, collagen and deep savoury depth to the beans, and a smoked ham hock delivers all four, plus smoke, which duck does not have. The pot reads smokier and porkier and less refined, and it is genuinely excellent. Pork belly gives the fat and silky texture without the smoke; a Toulouse or coarse garlic sausage gives the savoury hit and something to bite. Cut the salt elsewhere in the recipe, since cured pork brings plenty of its own.

Pork shoulder cooked low and slow until it shreds, for recipes where confit is used as rich pulled meat.

Best for

hash, rillettes and potted meat, tacos, buns and sandwiches, grain bowls and salads, bean stews, pasta sauces

Matches confit on texture very well, since both end up as glossy strands of meat you can crisp in a pan, and pork shoulder is a fraction of the price. The flavour is sweeter, milder and unmistakably pork, without duck's dark savour, and there is much more rendered fat, which is convenient because you can use it to fry the shreds. Salt the pork the day before, cook it at 300F for three to four hours until it pulls apart, then shred it and brown it hard in its own fat to build back some of the concentrated character confit has.

The other prepared duck products, which are often on the same shelf and closer than anything you would cook yourself.

Best for

cassoulet, salads, toast and charcuterie boards, pasta and risotto, quick bistro dishes

Tinned or vacuum-packed duck confit is widely sold and stores well, so this is the direct answer if a specialist shop or a French section is within reach. Duck rillettes are confit shredded and potted in fat, which means the flavour is identical and only the form has changed, so they work in beans, on toast and in pasta but not where you needed a whole leg on a plate. Smoked duck breast is more assertive and much leaner, adds smoke the dish did not have, and should be sliced in at the end rather than simmered. All three are salty, so taste before seasoning.

What to do tonight when the recipe needs confit and you have neither the time nor a jar of fat.

Best for

salads, hash, bean and lentil dishes, quick weeknight versions of bistro recipes

Be honest that this is the weakest option here, because confit's whole character comes from the salt and the hours in fat and this has neither. Roast or braise bone-in thighs until well done, pull the meat in large pieces, toss it with two tablespoons of duck fat or goose fat and a good pinch of salt, then fry it hard in a pan until the edges catch and crisp. Frying is what rescues it: the browned crusty edges are the part people actually love about crisped confit. It will taste like very good roast chicken rather than like confit, which for a salad or a hash is acceptable.