How to Make the Most of Your Meat

Whether you’re a once-a-week meat eater or a die-hard carnivore, you want to make the most of your meat so you’re not wasting money or insulting the cut you painstakingly purchased with the hard-earned dough you don’t want to waste. And if you rely on meat daily or just serve it as a weekend meal, cost is usually an important factor for a lot of folks.

The number one way to make the most out of your meat is to source the best meat and cuts you can, whatever your price range is. The first step is finding the best and then you can worry about how not to ruin it.

So if your best is ground meat, then source the best ground meat you can find, which is usually at your local butcher shop. Cuts of meat to consider for mincing range from the popular beef chuck to savory lamb shoulder to fatty pork butt. The beauty of ground meat is that it doesn’t have to be expensive (cheap cuts make the best mince), boring, or bland – it’s super versatile and there is a myriad of ways to add flavor when cooking ground meat. And while we’re talking expense and making your money stretch where you can, consider the best cuts of meat for pressure canning (and a giant note to self to undertake this sooner rather than later).

But it’s not just where you source your meat that matters. Knowing how to cook certain cuts is just as important. There’s nothing worse than biting into a piece of meat that makes your jaw hurt and teeth ache; a piece of meat that could have been tender and juicy had it been cooked correctly.

Generally speaking, cheaper cuts are tougher cuts that require lower temperatures and longer cooking times in order to break down the meat enough to create a tender chew. And the more expensive cuts of meat are well marbled or naturally very tender – both properties representing high quality cuts and therefore, usually carrying a higher price tag.

But regardless of the price of meat, knowing some of the best ways to cook cuts of meat will help you make the most of your meat. For instance, the best way to cook a prime rib roast is low ‘n slow in the oven. The favorite way to cook a ribeye is in a cast iron pan and the preferred way to have a NY strip is grilled.

But of course you can cook the same cut in more than one way to achieve – you guessed it, more than one result. Take for instance, pork belly. Thick chunks or cut in strips, both pan-seared, and it gave me two different experiences. The thick cut pork belly chewed more like a hunk of meat would while the pork belly cut in strips fried up like bacon and melted in my mouth.

I eat a lot of top sirloin steaks. My favorite way to enjoy this underrated cut is pan-seared in a stainless steel pan with some bacon fat. Simple, yet it turns the outside into a crispy, caramelized exterior while it gets cooked to my preferred rare to medium rare, resulting in an easy chew. It depends on the thickness of the cut as to how long that is – usually only 6 to 7 minutes per side.

It’s like anything in life, though. Sometimes you get the good meat and sometimes you don’t. But following some basic steps can help you make the most of the meat you do have.

Read about the best ways to cook more than a dozen cuts of beef here.

Learn the important rules to know when cooking steak tips here.

Discover more ways to add flavor to your beef stew here.