Rolled half-butter, half-lard pie dough, the finished turkey pot pie in a cast-iron skillet, and the fork-sealed top crust

Half-Butter, Half-Lard Pie Crust

Name: Half-Butter, Half-Lard Pie Crust
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 1 double crust for a 12-inch cast-iron skillet
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 300g all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling; 1 tsp fine salt; 112g leaf lard, cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes; 112g unsalted butter (about 1 stick), cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes; 120ml ice water; A pinch of flaky salt for the top crust (optional)

November 9, 2026

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What you need
Make the crust (20 minutes, plus 1 hour to chill)
Roll, fill and bake (about 1 hour)
The verdict

The day after our Thanksgiving test run, we made my personal favorite use for leftovers, pot pie. We have been wanting to make a half lard/half butter crust since launching the lard and here we had a perfect excuse. We built the whole thing in a cast-iron skillet.

Our last pie used an all-lard crust. It came out flaky but crumbly, and it took some care to roll. Cold butter fixes that. The water in butter, about 16% by weight (USDA), builds just enough gluten to hold the dough together on the counter. The butter pieces bake into flaky layers, and the lard keeps the crust tender. Great all-purpose pie dough recipe!

This is our tomato pie crust, doubled, with leaf lard in place of the tallow.

What you need

For the crust (a bottom and top crust for a 12-inch cast-iron skillet, no sugar):

300g all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1 tsp fine salt
112g leaf lard, cold, cut into ½-inch cubes
112g unsalted butter (about 1 stick), cold, cut into ½-inch cubes
120ml ice water

To finish (optional): a pinch of flaky salt for the top crust.

Make the crust (20 minutes, plus 1 hour to chill)

Half-butter, half-lard pie dough rolled out on a marble counter, with streaks of fat showing

Freeze the cubed lard and butter for 15 minutes. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl and work in the cold fat with a pastry blender or your fingertips until it looks like coarse crumbs with some bigger bits. Drizzle in the ice water a tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork, and stop as soon as a squeezed handful holds together. You may not need all of it. Shape it into two discs, making one a bit bigger for the bottom crust, then wrap and chill them for an hour or more.

Roll, fill and bake (about 1 hour)

Sealing the top crust of a turkey pot pie with a fork in a cast-iron skillet

Heat the oven to 400°F. Roll the larger disc into a round about 3 inches wider than the skillet and ease it in without stretching it. Add your filling. Roll out the smaller disc, drape it over the filling, trim the overhang, and seal the edge with the tines of a fork. Cut a ring of slits in the top so steam can escape. If you like, sprinkle the top with a pinch of flaky salt. Bake until the top is golden and the filling bubbles through the slits, about 40 minutes. We skipped the egg wash to move faster, and the crust baked up pale gold. Brush one on if you want it browner.

The verdict

It came out flaky and rich. So, so good! Making a single-crust pie? Halve the recipe and follow the blind bake in our tomato pie.

We made it with our leaf lard, the leaf fat from pasture-raised pigs on independent American family farms, slow-rendered in small batches with nothing added. Of our rendered fats, it's the one we bake pie crust and biscuits with.

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Pasture-Raised Pork Leaf Lard (11 oz)

Soft, neutral leaf lard, slow-rendered from pasture-raised pigs. The baker's fat for flaky pie crust, tender biscuits, and tamales the way they're supposed to taste.

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