My family loves feeding birds in our back yards. We have about 7 or 8 feeders at all times, including suets. I personally love having suet available for birds because it tends to attract birds like woodpeckers that don’t gather at traditional feeders. The thing I dislike is the price, it’s more expensive to buy the suet cakes compared to seed. I decided to make some myself, it is so easy!
DIY Bird Suet Recipe
Updated May 2025.
| Prep Time | 15 minutes |
| Cook Time | 5 minues |
| Servings | suets |
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1 cup fat leftover grease from meats like bacon or Crisco
- 1 cup peanut butter crunchy is best
- .5 cup Nuts
- 1 cup Quick-Oats
- 1 cup Bird Seed
- 2 Tbsp Fruits like raisins or Craisins
Ingredients
| |
- Heat fat and peanut butter over medium heat on stove on low until combined, about 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat and add cornmeal, nuts, seeds, and fruit until a thick consistency, mix well.
- Spray Chick-fil-A soup container with non-stick spray.
- Fill the container with suet until almost to the top, leaving room for the lid.
- Freeze until ready to use.
Updated May 2025.
I’m on a Chick-fil-A mom panel and received coupons to facilitate this post.
While we were at Chick-fil-A last week for dinner, I had a great idea! We were enjoying the new Chicken Tortilla Soup, it was a perfect way to warm up on a chilly afternoon. Have you tried it yet? It’s amazing with hearty pieces of chicken, navy beans, northern beans, black beans and vegetables a white creamy base. There is a kick to it with South West flavors. The soup is topped with seasoned crunchy tortilla chips on top.
It actually brought back really found memories of when my husband and I were dating. We use to frequent a little Mexican restaurant that served endless bowls of tortilla soup. It has sense closed and we still talk about their soup – and our first days of dating some 22 years ago…Chick-fil-A’s soup is actually even better!
So, my brilliant idea was to take our Chicken Tortialla Soup containers home to make my own DIY bird suet! I searched online for a few tips and found that you can basically put anything birds love to make your own DIY Bird Suet including peanut butter, fat, cornmeal, fruit seeds, raisins, oats, and bird seed.
I couldn’t be more pleased with this DIY Bird Suet recipe. It is a lot more affordable than purchasing pre-made and very easy to make. My kids enjoyed helping to make it and giving it to our birds. My kids are older and I’ve been cooking with my kids since they were toddlers. They are old enough to prepare this entire recipe with very little supervision, just be watchful with your kids and melting the ingredients – obviously!
Once the peanut butter and fats are melted down, add the dry ingredients.
Spray your Chick-fil-A soup containers with a non-stick spray and fill with your DIY suet mixture.
Freeze until ready to serve your backyard birds! The consistency is fabulous and the size of the Chick-fil-A soup containers were perfect for our suet feeders. This is a cheap suet feeder like we use.
We’ve had several kinds of woodpeckers, nuthatches, and chickadees to our suet feeder. The birds love it!
In case you need an excuse to stop by Chick-fil-A, this is a fun reason. This fun activity can encourage the birders in your family as well. I encourage you to stop by Chick-fil-A for a delicious bowl of their new, seasonal Chicken Tortilla Soup and keep those containers to reuse as a suet mold.