NWBirding Suet Recipe

Suet Recipe

I’ve been asked for my suet recipe a couple of times, so I decided to post it here. The birds at our house seem to really love the suet. I think it is also better for the birds and less is wasted than typical store suet.

I can’t really say it’s my recipe, because I’m pretty sure I’ve pulled it off the internet several year ago, but I can’t remember where I got it or if I’ve changed it in anyway.

So here’s the basic recipe:

2 parts lard
1 part peanut butter
2 parts corn meal
2 parts hulled sunflower seed
(1 part flour)*

*for summer suet recipe, see notes below

Melt lard and peanut butter. Remove from heat add remaining ingredients. Mix well (breaking up clumps).
Pour into plastic wrap-lined 9x13 or 8x8 pans or any mold you prefer. A cleaned 1/2 gallon paper milk carton works very well - just fill the empty carton up with the suet mix.
Put in the fridge overnight or until firm. Remove from pan. Cut into preferred size (standard suet feeder size is 4x4). If you used the milk carton then use a sharp knife to slice through the carton and the suet.
Wrap extra suet individually in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.

A couple additional notes on the recipe:

Since making suet is quite messy (at least for me), I usually make two batches of suet a year – one for winter and one for summer. Each time I make enough to last me half the year (24-4x4x1 cakes). The summer suet is the same as the winter suet, except it has flour to help keep it from melting at higher temperatures (the winter suet melts quite easily). The summer suet still melts – above 80 it starts to get goopy. But it works well for Pacific Northwest Maritime Summers.

If you have the freezer space, make enough to store extra – they are a lot easier to handle when they are frozen too.

I found it important to use hulled sunflower seeds (no millet mixes), because the sunflower seeds with the shell tend to go ignored (i.e. end up on the ground). If you have a seed feeder, the birds will go there if they want seed. And since not all birds eat millet don’t put millet in the suet. That will be wasted as well (well, the rats probably enjoy it, but usually people don’t intentionally feed rats).

You can find lard in the grocery stories. Or get a large box of it from the Cash N’ Carry stores. It last me a long time, but keeps the birds happy and is cheaper over all. Also I use the leftover bacon greese that I collect in jars. It seems to work just fine and the birds like it too.

If you don’t want to feed the Starlings (who love suet), try making a Starling-proof suet feeder.