How to Confit (Almost) Anything

We’ve teamed up with our friends at All-Clad to bring you Pans With a Plan—a series sharing smart techniques, tasty recipe ideas, and all sorts of handy tips for cooking novices and seasoned pros alike. Here, food writer and recipe developer Maki Yazawa shares a holiday-ready dessert recipe that comes together in their D3® Stainless 3-Quart Sauté Pan: warmly spiced pear confit, served with a dollop of cardamom-infused crème fraîche.

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Though you may have heard the term confit before—it’s usually associated with fancy-sounding dishes like duck confit—the method is much simpler than the name leads on. Requiring just a few essential components and key steps, learning to confit is easy enough for even the most beginner home cook to pull off.

Here’s everything you need to know about confit, plus how to confit anything from vegetables and meat to fruit and garlic using the All-Clad D3® 3-Quart Sauté Pan With Lid—my confit vessel of choice for its deep, straight walls and even heat distribution.

What is confit?

Derived from the French word “confire,” which means to preserve, confit is a centuries-old French cooking technique that was originally designed to preserve food susceptible to spoilage or bacteria. Though flavor wasn’t initially the main priority, the result of preserving food cooked in fat for several hours turned out to be delicious.

To confit, food must be cured in salt (when necessary) and slowly cooked in fats like duck fat, chicken fat, olive oil, or sugar syrup (most commonly used to confit fruit or citrus peels) at low temperatures. Cooking and storing the food submerged in the liquid helps create an inhospitable environment for bacteria to grow, which preserves the food for a longer time—months, in some cases.

How does confit differ from other cooking methods?

Unlike other similar methods involving cooking foods submerged in fat (like deep-frying), confit requires much lower temperatures to achieve its unique preservation results. To deep-fry, temperatures typically range between 325 and 450°F; meanwhile, confit temperatures linger around 300°F or below. This low-and-slow cooking process not only helps draw out moisture and replace it with fat in the ingredient, but the process also minimizes bacteria, makes food extra-tender, and amps up the levels of umami.

Meat, Poultry & Fish Confit

When working with proteins, you may want to use a salt cure to help draw out excess moisture before confiting. Here’s the method I learned in culinary school for a confit classic—duck:

1. Combine 35 grams kosher salt with 0.5 grams curing salt (which has sodium nitrite that prevents bacteria growth).
2. Flavor the salt mixture with ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper, a crushed bay leaf, and half of a minced garlic clove.
3. Next, coat six whole duck legs with the seasoning mixture, place them in a container with a weighted lid to press the duck down, and leave in the refrigerator for about 72 hours.
4. Once you’re ready to confit, brush off the excess salt seasoning, quickly rinse the duck legs, and dry well with paper towels.
5. Place the duck in an oven-safe, deep-walled pan or pot, and cover entirely with rendered duck fat. Cook the duck legs in the oven at 300°F for approximately 2 to 3 hours, or until the meat is completely tender and falls off the bone.
6. When ready to enjoy, remove the legs from the cooking liquid and any excess fat, and broil for a few minutes until the skin is crisp and golden. The confit duck legs, stored submerged in the cooking fat, can last up to six months in the refrigerator.

You can also prepare other meats like turkey and pork using the same confit method. Additionally, you may confit fish like cod or salmon using a similar technique; however, you’ll want to shorten the salt curing time to just under 30 minutes to prevent the delicate fish from over-drying.

Vegetable Confit

If you practice a plant-based diet or are simply looking to cook your vegetables in a new way, you can also confit starchy veggies like carrots, parsnips, and potatoes:

1. Start by cleaning and prepping the vegetables, making sure to dry them thoroughly before cooking. Next, add them into a pot or pan with spices and herbs, like whole peppercorns, thyme, and rosemary.
2. Fill the pot with enough olive oil to entirely cover the vegetables, herbs, and spices. Cook over low to medium-low heat until fully cooked and tender. Depending on the type of vegetable, this may take between 30 minutes to an hour.
3. If you’re not serving them right away, store them in an air-tight jar submerged in the cooking oil in the refrigerator for up to three months.

Fruit Confit

Unlike duck confit, fruit confit requires no salt cure and uses sugar syrup (instead of fat) as the cooking liquid. Slowly cook whole fruits, like pears or apples, and citrus peels using this method to create delicious desserts like pear confit, candied orange peels, or preserved cherries.

To fully achieve the preservation benefits of confit, you’ll need to thoroughly remove all of the moisture from the fruit, which can take several days and batches of more concentrated sugar solutions. However, if you’re looking for a quicker version of a traditional confit, slowly cooking fruit in a sugar syrup mixture at low temperatures can achieve similar results, though it will last only about five days in the refrigerator.

In this Pear Confit With Cardamom Crème Fraîche, the pears are slowly cooked in a bath of warm spices (think: clove, star anise, cardamom, and cinnamon), wine, and sugar, then topped with a dollop of cardamom crème fraîche for an elegant dessert.

Garlic Confit

Easily one of the most versatile ingredients in your kitchen, garlic tastes great in its many forms: raw, dried and ground, flakes, caramelized, or even fermented. For fans of this flavorful allium, it might be time to give garlic confit a try (if you haven’t already). Make it by cooking batches of garlic cloves in fat like olive oil or grapeseed oil on low heat, which produces a tender, nutty clove perfect for spreading, cooking, or (if you’re me) eating alone.

1. Fully submerge peeled cloves from a whole head of garlic in oil in a pan or pot, then add flavoring ingredients like sprigs of rosemary or thyme.
2. Cook over low heat until golden and tender. As the cloves render down, the oil will be infused with the aromas of the herbs and garlic, creating a homemade flavored oil (in addition to the confit garlic cloves) that’s great for dressing salads or drizzling over your avocado toast.
3. Garlic confit can last in the refrigerator for up to one week and be frozen for up to three months.

More Confit Ideas

Confit d’oignon, another popular French confit recipe, slowly cooks down onions in oil until they’re caramelized, sweet, and spreadable. To make them, render thinly sliced onions in an oil and wine mixture until they’re soft and tender. The result: a jam-like spread ideal for smearing over fresh baguette or slices of toast, which can last up to one to two weeks in the refrigerator. Similarly, you can make tomato confit using the same technique, which can last up to one month in the fridge and three months in the freezer when stored in the cooking oil.

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What are your favorite foods to confit? Tell us in the comments!

In partnership with All-Clad we're bringing you tips, techniques, and lots of delicious recipe ideas for every piece of cookware in your kitchen—from sauté pans to stockpots. Need to stock up on some new cooking equipment, or upgrade your current collection? All-Clad’s D3® Stainless collection has all the essentials you need to turn out a variety of dishes.