Hey all,
I’d just like to figure out what the best cuts (ie fattiest) of beef you can get are, for the price? I know ribeye is great and all but it’s too expensive to buy all the time. Most of the time I go to the store and find something that looks fatty, but turns out it’s all ligament that even a day of sous vide won’t make worthwhile.
So what’s a good balance of flavor and price, in everyone’s recommendation?
Thanks!
A store I go to named lidl I can often find grassfed ribeyes on sale for around $5
so if you’re looking to save money - do this…
go to the store and look at the “sell by” date. You will probably notice that a lot of the meat there has the same sell by date and that’s because of how that butcher times their deliveries and what they put on the shelf.
now… on that day, go in early - like 8am. It’ll usually be an inconvenient day like Sunday morning… but go out there and look in the bargain section of the meats.
The butcher has to move it on that day or trash it… so those days, I can find $20 ribeyes, sirloins, and T-bones for $5… consistently. I stock up but always leave enough for the next guy who comes in… cause sometimes, I may be the “next guy”.
If you’re three “bargain hunters” in, you might not find any on that rack - at least not anything you’d want to take.
hope that helps. it’s a learning curve.
I often find pork shoulder roasts and top or bottom round beef roasts at my local grocery store, buy one get one free. It often works out to about a dollar pound. At Aldi I love to get a nice marbled chuck roast. It’s around $18.00 for a 4.25 pound roast but I can easily get 3-4 meals out of it. I also like to get chicken thighs or legs at Aldi. Both of those are less than a dollar a pound. The other day I got 14 decent sized chicken legs for around $5.00. If you like pork, look into pork shoulder. It’s similar to pork chops but the meat is a bit fattier, might have some small bones and/or gristle. I find them tastier tthan lean pork chops and the demand for this “unhealthy” cut is less so the price is quite a bit cheaper.
Any time I can spend less than $5.00 on a meal just for the protein and fat, then I’m quite pleased.
I tried doing this, but noticed that the price doesn’t budge at my local Walmart until the day before the sell-by date, and the meat already has that weird grey-ish color to it. The price is definitely tempting, but the color freaks me out a bit, especially since I won’t be eating it that day, I’ll cook it as part of my 6 day meal prep
Getting a smoker was one of the best things I ever did. I’ll keep my eye on our local stores, i.e. Kroger, Aldi, Jungle Jim’s, etc. for good deals on meat or look for the marked down stuff and then try and stock up the deep freeze.
Favorites so far are baby back ribs and pork butts for pulled pork. Both come out awesome on the smoker. I’d add brisket to that list, but it only goes on sale every once in a great while. Another huge winner on the smoker though.
If 80/20 ground beef is cheap I’ll get that too. Believe it or not, but burgers on the smoker are really good too…takes longer than the grill but taste better.
don’t worry about the color. Meat that is properly refrigerated is fine even with the color change.
Meat actually ages and the red meat is already 30 days old.
I marinade mine overnight with soy sauce, olive oil and lime juice + spices
Pork belly is not to expensive if you want fatty
LeCheffre sure makes it look good.
This isn’t a problem, aged beef always does this. It’s from exposure to air after cutting. The protein myoglobin is the red liquid that comes off beef, it isn’t blood. It only stays red for a while after cutting into the meat. Often with steaks if the smell is a little off just rinse the liquid off, it goes bad before the meat. As long as you use or freeze that brownish steak it will be just fine to consume. If it tastes funny stop eating it. I think that only happened once with pork from the bargain bin. Don’t try this with ground meats! Just about all the beef that I buy from big chain grocery stores comes out of the Manager’s Special bins. Been doing it for years and never got ill from eating brown/grey beef.
https://www.stilltasty.com/questions/index/20/page:1
I go for beef heart, chicken hearts, beef liver, beef kidney, etc. Most of those aren’t fatty though. Odd that a lot of offal is lower in fat. I also like (low carb) ham, but I eat a lower fat, higher protein keto diet.
I have been trying different stews to roast some of the lower quality cuts of meat. This helps, although if you use a wine sauce, you will increase carbs somewhat, and then mirepoix will add to that.
I appreciate this a lot though! I always see the advice of “go when it’s on sale” but never knew how to tell, checking those dates makes a lot of sense.
Thank you! I have no problem with pork shoulders/butts but I get tired of pulled pork occasionally, so I was looking for beef. I’ll check out the chuck roasts as that sounds good to me.
Oxtail and tongue. Both are very fatty, especially oxtail, but very different in texture and distribution of the fat. Oxtail needs a long slow cook, stewed or braised, to break down the connective tissue and then it becomes very tender. Tongue is more versatile but I still like it best slow cooked. Price on each is highly variable, in some places they can be very inexpensive and in others they can be as much or even pricier than common cuts like chuck roast. Prime rib is my favorite premium fatty cut although after adjusting for bone weight it can be about as expensive as ribeye.
I like to put a good rub on my roast, pan sear all sides and slow cook it at 225 degrees for about five hours on a rack in an uncovered roasting pan. When it reaches 140-145 degrees, it comes out medium rare to medium. Sliced thin, it’s the best roast beef ever. It will come out with a bit more gristle and fat than typical roast beef but I see that as a bonus.
I just look for what’s on sale. The “Managers Special” section often has something good and at a decent price. Sometimes there are loss-leader type sales. Bought some ground beef for $1.49/lb a few months ago that I have to think was a loss-leader since it was advertised.
I’m not a fan of ground beef in a “tube” but that’s typically one of the cheapest and fattiest of the ground meats in the store. I much prefer the ground in the blister packs that I can see the actual meat, not a picture of it printed on the tube. Texture is different, at least to me.
FWIW, I often take sous vide chuck or shoulder type roasts to 3 days. I know some people probably think that’s too long but I like them fork tender with no need of a knife to eat. (I do use a knife to slice it.) Had one over the weekend with company over and they said it was the best they’ve ever had. (They wanted to know what the sous vide was so… we had to demonstrate… and how do you demonstrate without a sample? 
We have a bit of a collection in the freezer of various meats, chicken legs, chicken thighs, chicken breasts, ground chuck, ground beef, shoulder roasts, chuck roasts… we don’t usually go to the store with anything in particular in mind but often come across a bargain of some kind. And when we don’t, it’s not a big deal since we have a pretty good collection in the freezer already.
My best find to date was a 1 pound pack of ground lamb for $0.99. It’s usually like $9/lb where I bought it. I was in the right place at the right time.
Good luck!
I don’t know where you are, but in the UK we can buy feather steak, which is the best part of the shoulder. It has a good marbling of fat and needs long slow braising. It has a “feather” like tissue running through it that melts as it cooks to a meltingly tender meat.
If you can spare the carbs it makes a beautiful bourguinion.
I think that’s like skirt steak in the US and it’s a good alternative too.
I used to hesitate at the grey-ish color, but then I figure they dye it red to begin with, so who knows what the actual color really is.
Good point.
I just worry that the cuts will actually have gone bad upon opening the package and my money will have been wasted, since I buy and cook 1 week’s worth of meat for both me and my wife’s meal prep