Can Any Cut Of Beef Be A Steak?

This may be a bit of an understatement, but cows are big animals, and they end up getting transformed into a lot of different steaks and cuts of beef. In the U.S. the average beef cow is almost 1,400 pounds and produces a truly staggering variety of cuts. Even putting aside terms that describe the same cut of steak, if you have a full service butcher counter at your supermarket, there can be 50-plus cuts to choose from. Moving backwards, all those choices come from larger beef cuts called primals, which are the distinct sections of the cow with similar characteristics, like the shoulder or chuck, the rib, and the round. But can every one of those primals produce a steak? Well, like anything with beef, there's no simple answer, but in general most cuts of beef can become a steak.

What makes the question difficult is that "steak" is one of those terms that everyone kind of naturally understands without it getting formally defined. But that understanding is a pretty good starting point: In general, any cut of beef sliced thin and small enough to be cooked quickly and eaten as a single serving is a steak. This separates steaks from larger cuts, usually roasts, that need to be cooked slower and make for many servings. Because of this, steaks usually come from areas of the cow that are tender and have little connective tissue, making them easy to slice and eat ... but this isn't always the case.

Filet mignon and ribeye are good starting points to consider. They come from two different primals — the filet from the loin, and ribeye from the rib. Both are sliced from larger cuts that can be used as roasts. For different reasons, these sections produce high-quality beef, with the tenderloin being, well, very tender, and the ribeye being marbled and juicy, which is why they so often get singled out for steaks.

This pattern also holds for less desirable cuts. The round primal at the rear of the cow is dry and tough, because that section gets a lot of work. It produces round roasts and sirloin roasts that are popular for slow cooking. But despite their lean nature, you can still slice them down for sirloin steaks or top round steaks. They might not be ideal, but if you know how to cook them, steaks from the round can make a decent dinner.

So, despite their suitability, almost every cut of beef can become a steak if you cut them small. The few examples that make this conditional come from very tough sections of the cow, where even single serving portions need to be slow cooked. This mostly refers to two small areas, the brisket and the shank, with every other cut of beef producing at least one type of usable steak.