Hocks & Shanks (Fresh)

Most pork hocks and shanks you will find have already been smoked and cured — the salt and smoke built in before they ever reach your kitchen. Ours are fresh and uncured, skin on, exactly as they come off the leg. That means you control everything that goes into the pot.

Both are collagen-rich lower leg cuts built for the same low and slow occasion. Add them whole to a pot of collard greens, butter beans, black eyed peas, or split pea soup and the skin and bone slowly perfume the broth, releasing gelatin and depth that no other cut produces the same way. Braise them in wine and aromatics in a covered Dutch oven at 300°F for three to four hours and what comes out is fall-off-the-bone pork in a braising liquid worth finishing as a sauce. A slow cooker on low for six to eight hours gets you to the same place with less attention required.

The shank carries slightly more meat on the bone. The hock is denser with connective tissue and contributes more gelatin to a long simmer. Both are worth knowing. Choose by what you are making — the hock for a pot of beans or greens where it is a flavoring cut, the shank when you want something more substantial on the plate.

Sold individually and priced by weight.

Our smoked ham hocks are the same cut finished with smoke — a completely different flavor profile for a different occasion. Our pork soup bones and bone broth belong in the same pot when you want to go deeper.