Lardo substitutes

The white fat trimmed from the edge of a prosciutto leg, which is the same thing by a different route: cured pork fat, salty, aged and soft enough to melt at body temperature.

Best for

draping on warm bread or toast, cheese and charcuterie boards, wrapping lean meat or fish before roasting, melting over hot polenta or beans

The swap to use when the lardo is served raw, because it is the only common product that genuinely melts on the tongue instead of staying as a slice you have to chew. It tastes slightly nuttier and more intensely cured than lardo and carries none of the rosemary and garlic perfume, so a plate of it reads saltier and plainer; scatter a little chopped rosemary and a crack of pepper over the bread to put that back. Ask the deli for the end piece or the trimmings, which are often cheap or free. Freeze it for 20 minutes, then cut at a low angle with your sharpest knife to get sheets thin enough to see through.

Ordinary sliced prosciutto crudo, asking for the fattiest slices from near the end of the leg.

Best for

charcuterie boards, wrapping vegetables, fish or chicken, topping crostini, topping pizza after baking

The easiest substitute to actually buy, and the one to accept a compromise on. Because each slice carries lean meat as well as fat, it stays intact and chewy on the tongue and tastes clearly of ham rather than dissolving into pure richness, so a crostino made with it has a distinct layer of prosciutto on top instead of a glossy film that has vanished into the bread. Lay the slices on while the food is still hot so at least the fatty edges render and go translucent, which gets you part of the way.

Cured pork jowl, mostly fat with soft ribbons of lean running through it, sold in slabs at Italian delis.

Best for

cooked dishes, rendering as a cooking fat, topping bruschetta, enriching beans, greens and soups

The single best swap when the lardo is going into a hot dish, because cubed and rendered slowly it gives up a silky fat with more depth than lardo manages. The difference you will taste is loudness: guanciale is assertively porky and usually peppery from the cure, so beans or greens started in it come out savoury and unmistakably meaty where lardo would have left a quiet, clean richness you notice only as texture. Use about a quarter less than the recipe says, and do not serve it raw as a lardo stand-in, since the lean ribbons stay firm and chewy.

The Ukrainian, Polish and Russian version of the same product: salted, cured pork fatback eaten in thin slices, sometimes smoked or rubbed with garlic and paprika.

Best for

eating raw in thin slices, on rye or sourdough, charcuterie boards, melting over hot potatoes

If there is an Eastern European grocery near you this is the cheapest true equivalent of lardo you will find, and in the mouth it is essentially identical: the same soft, cool, melting slice. Ask for an unsmoked piece, because a smoked one tastes like bacon on the bread and will fight anything Tuscan in the dish, and a garlic-and-paprika rubbed one pushes the plate east rather than Italian. Rinse and pat dry a heavily seasoned piece and you get most of the way back.

Cured, unsmoked pork belly with clear alternating layers of fat and lean, sliced or cubed.

Best for

barding a lean roast, starting a soffritto, wrapping meat for roasting, sauces and braises

Good in any cooked application and wrong for a raw plate: pancetta must be cooked, and rendering it is where it earns its place. Because it is saltier and more heavily spiced than lardo, the dish ends up tasting roasted and faintly bacony rather than cool and delicate, and the lean layers crisp into chewy bits instead of disappearing. Render it slowly over low heat without letting it colour if you want it closest to lardo, and taste the dish before adding any salt.

The non-pork answer, for cooked uses only, where lardo is simply supplying fat, salt and herbal aroma.

Best for

greasing or enriching a braise, starting a soffritto, roasting vegetables, vegetarian and halal cooking

Be clear about the trade: butter browns and tastes dairy-sweet, olive oil tastes green and peppery, and neither carries the savoury, faintly funky depth of a cured product, so a pot of beans started this way comes out cleaner and simpler rather than richer, and nobody will mistake it for a Tuscan one. Add the crushed rosemary to the cold fat and warm it gently so the oils infuse, then fish it out. If the recipe was leaning on lardo for savoury depth, a teaspoon of white miso or a mashed anchovy fillet stirred in covers a fair part of it. Do not use this route for a raw plate; there is nothing to slice.