A Guide to Cooking with Offal and Off-Cuts

Beyond Chops, Steaks, and Roasts

1/29/2025

As meat consumers, we have a responsibility to make the most of every part of the animal and reduce waste. By buying directly from farmers, you not only support local agriculture but also expand the range of meats available in your freezer. This includes unique items such as bones, offal, and various cuts that are often overlooked in grocery stores. While these may seem daunting at first, they open the door to a world of culinary creativity, allowing you to explore new dishes, textures, and flavors that can elevate your cooking experience.

A wooden cutting board displaying halal grassfed marrow bones alongside slices of bread.

Bones

Meat shares often include the animal’s bones. During butchering, much of the carcass is deboned, meaning the bones are removed so that boneless meat cuts can be prepared. Bones are an excellent option for producing nutrient-dense stock and broths and the butcher will cut them to stockpot-friendly sizes. The best bones for stocks are joints, knuckles, and vertebrae. Large round bones, like the femur (in the leg) and the humerus (in the shoulder) are the best sources for marrow, a rich, fatty, decadent substance filling the inner chamber of the bone. Marrow can be teased out of the bones after roasting and is well worth the effort. Butchers can cut round bones into short lengths (crosswise) or canoes (lengthwise) for roasting.

A piece of halal grassfed beef liver on a wooden cutting board next to a sharp knife.

Offal & Off-cuts

The typical rundown of livestock organ meats will include tongue, heart, liver, and kidneys. Off-cuts will include oxtail, cheeks, pig ears, trotters, and other non-standard cuts. Don’t shy away from exploring these categories. The heart is fantastic grilled, tails and cheeks are ideal slow-cooked cuts, and tongue, liver, and kidneys lend themselves to many traditional preparations.

A red crock pot beside a bowl of halal grassfed beef fat, intended for making tallow.

Fat

Different areas of the carcass offer different kinds of fat. Most of it will be used to add flavor and lubrication to ground meats, like burger blends, cased sausages, and loose grind. On occasion, you will get some extra fat which can be rendered at home and used for cooking, lotions, or candle making. When purchasing pork shares, you may be offered leaf lard, which is a type of pork fat traditionally used for baking and a great option for pie crust and other pastries.