The Meaty Truth About What Deserves Your Money
Walk into any butcher shop or supermarket meat department, and you'll face a bewildering array of steaks, all promising tenderness and flavor. Some deliver spectacularly, whereas others are overpriced disappointments that leave you chewing longer than you'd like. The difference between a revelatory steak dinner and a mediocre one often comes down to knowing which cuts actually earn their price tag and which ones are coasting on reputation alone. Here are ten cuts worth every bite and ten you should skip.
1. Ribeye
Fat marbling runs through this cut like rivers through a delta, and when that fat renders, you get a butter-soft texture and explosive flavor. You can find bone-in or boneless versions, though the bone adds a certain primal satisfaction to the eating experience.
2. Strip Steak (New York Strip)
This cut from the short loin offers a firmer bite and more pronounced beef flavor without ribeye's richness. When you want steak to taste intensely like steak, this delivers. The strip steak features a characteristic strip of fat along one edge that crisps up beautifully under high heat.
3. Tenderloin (Filet Mignon)
This is one of the most tender cuts you can buy. It lacks the fat content of a ribeye, but what it offers is an almost velvety texture that practically dissolves on your tongue. Wrap it in bacon if you want extra fat.
4. Picanha (Top Sirloin Cap)
Brazilian steakhouses built empires on this cut. The fat cap on top bastes the meat as it cooks, creating layers of flavor that surprise anyone trying it for the first time. The triangular shape might look odd compared to familiar rectangular steaks, yet that geometry concentrates flavor in unexpected ways.
5. Hanger Steak
This cut hangs between the rib and the loin, supporting the diaphragm, and develops intense, beefy flavor from all that work. Cook it past medium, and you've made boot leather. If you slice it thinly and respect the cook time, it rewards you with flavor well above its modest price point.
6. Flat Iron
Carved from the shoulder, this newer cut emerged in the early 2000s when researchers removed the tough connective tissue running through the chuck and discovered the second-most tender cut on the entire cow. The flat iron costs a fraction of tenderloin while delivering remarkable tenderness and rich flavor.
7. Porterhouse
This is two steaks in one. You get strip steak on one side of the T-bone and a generous piece of tenderloin on the other. That combination of textures and flavors on a single bone makes this cut perfect for when you can't decide what you want.
8. Skirt Steak
Skirt steak made fajitas famous, and once you've had properly cooked skirt with a good char, you understand the fuss. The outer and inner skirt differ slightly in tenderness, with the outer being more prized. Both require quick, high-heat cooking and thin slicing across the grain.
Zé Carlos Barretta from São Paulo, Brasil on Wikimedia
9. Tri-Tip
This triangular cut from the bottom sirloin remained a West Coast secret for decades before spreading nationwide. Santa Maria-style barbecue made tri-tip legendary, seasoning it simply with salt, pepper, and garlic before grilling over red oak.
10. Chuck Eye Steak
Cut from the fifth rib, where the ribeye ends and the chuck begins, this steak carries similar marbling and flavor for significantly less money. You might find it labeled as a "poor man's ribeye" at some butcher shops, though that undersells what you're getting.
And now, here are ten cuts worth skipping.
1. Round Steak
The round comes from the rear leg, a heavily exercised muscle group that develops strong connective tissue and minimal fat. You can cook it low and slow for pot roast, but calling it a steak seems like false advertising. One upside is that grocery stores sell it cheap.
2. Sirloin Tip Steak
This cut isn't from the sirloin at all but from the round. Despite deceptive marketing, sirloin tip steaks come out dry and chewy unless you basically marinate them into submission. Better options exist at similar price points.
Geoff Peters from Vancouver, BC, Canada on Wikimedia
3. Flank Steak
Years of food media hyping flank steak for fajitas and stir-fries drove prices up to ridiculous levels. The cut itself offers decent flavor when prepared correctly, sliced thin and not cooked past medium. Yet paying premium prices for what amounts to a thin, tough piece of meat makes no sense when skirt steak exists.
4. Eye Round Steak
Someone looked at the leanest, toughest part of the round and decided to cut it into steaks anyway. Eye round works fine for roast beef, sliced paper-thin at the deli counter. As a steak, the lack of fat and dense muscle fibers guarantee dry, chewy results regardless of your cooking method.
5. Shoulder Steak
Chuck contains some excellent cuts like the flat iron, yet the general shoulder steak isn't one of them. Its inconsistent texture, excessive connective tissue, and unpredictable tenderness make these a gamble nobody needs to take.
6. Skirt Steak
Wait, didn't we praise skirt earlier? The outside skirt, yes. The problem emerges when markets charge ribeye prices for what should be a value cut. Paying $15–20 per pound for a cut that requires perfect execution transforms it from a smart choice into an expensive risk.
7. Ranch Steak
Marketing created this cut from the shoulder center, attempting to rebrand a tough piece of chuck into something dinner-worthy. You'll find these sold at value prices with promises of tenderness that don't materialize on the grill. It has a significant amount of connective tissue running through it, which makes it better suited for braising than grilling.
pointnshoot from Castro Valley, California on Wikimedia
8. Petite Tender
Despite the name suggesting something delicate and special, this cut comes from the shoulder and delivers wildly inconsistent results. The small size means it cooks quickly and dries out easily. Other shoulder cuts offer better value and more reliable outcomes.
9. Bottom Sirloin Steak
The sirloin family includes hits and misses, and bottom sirloin falls firmly in the miss category. Tougher than top sirloin and less flavorful than tri-tip, this cut occupies an unfortunate middle ground where nothing particularly excels.
10. Cube Steak
This is mechanically tenderized meat that's been pounded into submission. Cube steak has its place in chicken-fried steak, where breading and gravy mask everything, yet buying it to grill as a regular steak misses the point entirely.
