Fatback substitutes

Often literally cut from the same part of the pig, then packed in salt. Texture and behaviour are a direct match, and it renders the same silky fat. The only real difference is sodium, and it is a big one: unrinsed salt pork can make a pot of beans genuinely inedible. Some salt pork also has meat streaks, which makes it closer to belly than to true fatback.

Best for

collard and turnip greens, pots of beans and peas, chowders and stews, cornbread, seasoning a pot of vegetables

Rinse it under cold water and scrub the salt off, or soak it in cold water for 20 to 30 minutes if it is very salty. Then salt the pot at the end, once you can taste it, rather than at the beginning.

The best substitute if you can get it, because like fatback it is fresh, unsmoked and unsalted, so it does not force any adjustments. The difference is that belly has layers of meat threaded through the fat, so it renders somewhat less pure fat and leaves behind tender meaty bits. In a pot of greens that reads as a bonus rather than a problem.

Best for

greens and beans, braises and stews, sausage making, rendering your own lard, confit and slow cooking

Because part of it is meat, use a little more if you specifically need the fat volume, roughly 1.25 times the weight. Cut it into 1 inch cubes and render slowly over low heat before you add liquid.

This is fatback that has already been melted down, so it delivers the richness and the mouthfeel instantly with no rendering time. What it cannot do is give you the chewy morsels of rendered fat left in the pot, or the slow release of flavor over an hour of simmering. A pot of beans made with lard tastes rich but slightly flat and one-dimensional next to one made with a chunk of fatback.

Best for

refried beans and tamales, cornbread and biscuits, frying, quick weeknight versions of long-cooked dishes

A 4 ounce piece of fatback yields roughly 2 to 3 ounces of lard, which is why you use less. Buy non-hydrogenated lard if you can, the shelf-stable hydrogenated blocks taste noticeably less clean.

The swap most people will actually make, and the one that changes the dish most. Bacon is belly that has been both cured and smoked, so on top of the meat streaks you get salt and a strong hickory or applewood note. Collard greens or black-eyed peas made with bacon taste unmistakably smoky rather than cleanly porky. Many people prefer that. Just know it is a different flavor, not a neutral one.

Best for

greens and beans when smoke is welcome, cornbread, soups and chowders, when it is all you have

Cut the recipe's salt, bacon brings plenty. Buy slab bacon rather than thin strips if you can, since a chunk renders slowly and holds up over a long simmer while thin strips disintegrate.

Cured Italian back fat, so it is exactly the same cut with salt, rosemary and often garlic and pepper worked into it over months. Structurally right, but it is a finishing ingredient rather than a cooking one: melting expensive lardo into a pot of beans wastes its herbal perfume and adds salt you did not plan for.

Best for

when you have it and nothing else, small amounts melted over hot vegetables or bread, enriching a braise

Treat it like a seasoned salt pork. Rinse the outside if it is heavily coated, cut the recipe's salt, and accept a rosemary and pepper background note.

The standard answer in Southern kitchens that do not cook pork, and a genuinely good one. It gives real smoke, salt and collagen, which means the pot liquor still has body. What it cannot supply is the fat, so the greens are noticeably leaner and less glossy, and the mouth-coating richness is absent.

Best for

collard, mustard and turnip greens, black-eyed peas and field peas, bean pots, pork-free Southern cooking

Add 2 tablespoons of oil or butter alongside it to replace some of the missing fat. Turkey parts need a longer simmer than fatback, closer to 1.5 hours, to give up their flavor.