It’s something I’ve had a lot of experience with as a frugal home cook, trained chef, and restaurateur. Restaurant margins are notoriously thin, so keeping food costs down is just as important for chefs as it is for busy parents or seniors on fixed incomes. With that in mind, here are 12 high-value cuts of meat and poultry that can help you save big on groceries.
1. Chicken Thighs and Legs
Chicken is prized for its versatility, but a lot of that love goes to boneless, skinless chicken breasts. While popular, they command a premium price for their convenience. You’ll find much better bargains if you shift your focus to the legs.
Chicken drumsticks and leg quarters are some of the cheapest meats you can buy, and meaty chicken thighs — while more costly — are still relatively inexpensive on a per-pound basis. (They’re easy to debone, too.) Whole chickens can also be a great bargain if you’re prepared to cut one up yourself. That kind of basic skill doesn’t take long to learn, and it will save you a lot at the checkout counter.
2. Beef Chuck
Chuck is cut from the steer’s shoulder, a heavily worked area, so it’s relatively tough and filled with connective tissue. What it lacks in natural tenderness, however, it makes up for in beefy flavor and luscious marbling, making it a good value cut when cooked right.
Chuck roasts and steaks are typically slow-cooked for dishes like pot roast. Prolonged low heat breaks down tough connective tissue and adds body to your broth or sauce, transforming the meat from chewy to fall-apart tender. A few naturally tender specialty cuts also originate in the shoulder, such as the chuck eye, which I’ll circle back to.
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3. Pork Shoulder
Pork shoulder is the hog equivalent to beef chuck, and at roughly half the price, it’s an even better bargain. Whether labeled as pork shoulder, butt roast, or Boston butt, these cuts all come from the same shoulder region. Like beef chuck, pork shoulder can be relatively tough, but slow-cooking renders it lush and tender. The cut is a popular choice for pulled pork and weekend roasts, and leftovers can be repurposed into sandwiches, tacos, and other quick meals.
4. Beef Brisket
Brisket, taken from the steer’s chest, is another tough, chewy cut that becomes an absolute delight when slow-cooked. You may have grown up eating it braised in a pot roast (the leftovers make delicious sandwiches) or slow-smoked as barbecue. Either way, it’s a relatively low-cost option sold whole or in smaller portions at the meat counter. There are two sections to the brisket — the more marbled point and the leaner flat — but both can be cooked the same way under low-and-slow heat.
5. Bone-in Beef Braising Cuts
Aside from chuck and brisket, several other lower-cost beef cuts offer excellent value if you have time to slow-cook them. Short ribs and oxtail are two common examples. Both have gotten more expensive in recent years, but they’re worth buying if you can find them at a good price, as they bring tons of rich, beefy flavor to braises and stews.
The best value in this category is beef shank, cut from the lower leg. It’s similarly tough, but rewarding when slow-cooked — and an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker cuts the cooking time dramatically.
6. Pork Steaks
Pork chops are a classic choice for weeknight meals or weekend grilling. But as prices rise, pork steaks offer a cheaper, still flavorful alternative. Cut from either the shoulder or the leg, these steaks are well-marbled and a bit chewy, but in a pleasant way, similar to lobster tails. They’re great for grilling, broiling, pan-searing, or oven-baking in sauce.
Leg steaks are leaner, making them ideal to pound thin and bread like schnitzel or chicken-fried steak. Pounding tenderizes the relatively tough cut while stretching each portion even further.
7. Beef Sirloin Cuts
Some cuts I recommend are clear bargains, while the value of others is relative to more popular options. Strip steaks and T-bones, for example, are pricey, but usually cheaper than tenderloins or rib eyes.
In that context, sirloin cuts hit a sweet spot between the tenderness of top-tier grilling steaks and the chewiness of chuck. They’re flavorful and tender enough to grill or pan-fry at a much better price point. Top sirloin is usually the first that comes to mind, but petite sirloin and tri-tip can give you a comparably great steak at a lower cost.
8. Lamb Breast and Neck
While lamb chops, racks, and leg of lamb are well-known cuts, they’re also relatively pricey. If you’re a lamb lover, a couple of cheaper options are worth considering. One is lamb neck, a cut you won’t see often in supermarkets but may find at stand-alone butchers. It’s not as tough as neck cuts from other animals, making it a great choice to slow-roast or cut up for stew.
The breast is the chest portion left behind when butchers cut away the popular rib roast, containing the lamb equivalent of short ribs. It’s meaty, well-marbled, and beautifully succulent when slow-cooked. You can also order it deboned and rolled up into an affordable roast.
9. Beef Round
Beef round comes from the steer’s hip, the same area that gives us ham on a pig. If you’re looking for inexpensive, versatile beef, this cut has a lot to offer. While it’s fairly tough and lean, it makes a solid roast, and its dense texture works especially well when sliced for sandwiches. You can also slice it for stir-fries (slicing thinly across the grain makes it less chewy) or pound it flat for chicken-fried steak. Since the round isn’t the most flavorful cut, give it a boost with a bold marinade, spice rub, or sauce.
10. Bistro Steaks and Specialty Cuts
The beef industry loves to generate buzz (and higher profits) by identifying undervalued small cuts within larger, tougher cuts. The chuck eye is a great example: Coming from the section right next to the rib, it’s much more tender than the surrounding meat. If your butcher carries it, you’ll pay far less than you would for a mainstream rib eye. Then there are bistro cuts — lean, flavorful options traditionally seared hot and sliced across the grain.
Examples include skirt, flank, hanger, teres major, the Denver cut, and flap steak. Though some have gotten pricier thanks to food trends, there’s value to be had if you know what to ask for.
11. Turkey Wings and Necks
Whole turkeys are a hot commodity during the holiday season, but they’re less popular the rest of the year. The turkey industry has pushed hard (and successfully) to branch out, turning ground turkey, deli meats, turkey bacon, and turkey breast roasts into supermarket staples. Two pieces of the bird that aren’t as in demand — and therefore command lower prices — are wings and necks.
Turkey wings are larger and tougher than chicken wings, so don’t plan on serving a platter of them for your next party. But they are meaty and flavorful when slow-cooked for soups, stews, or sandwich meat. Necks are even cheaper, yielding a surprising amount of meat and a rich broth when simmered. Use both cuts to flavor soups, rice dishes, or a Southern-style mess of greens.
12. Variety Meats
Nothing is more polarizing at the butcher shop than variety meats. This euphemistic label is often used for organ meats (hearts, livers, kidneys, and so on) because the old-fashioned term, “offal,” sounds … awful. But for those who can stomach the idea, this category offers some of the best deals in the meat section.
Kidneys and liver are the hardest sell due to their strong, minerally taste. Fortunately, soaking them in milk, buttermilk, or a light brine before cooking mellows them quite a bit. Hearts, meanwhile, are a tough muscle that benefit from slow braising or rapid searing. Beef hearts make a perfectly good pot roast, or you can slice them paper-thin (partially freezing them helps) and sear them for a few seconds. Chicken hearts are tender enough to fry whole or grill on skewers. At an unbeatable price point, they’re all worth a try.
How To Be a Smart Meat Shopper
• Know your IMPS numbers. Many cuts have different names depending on where you live, but they all share a standardized IMPS number that’s recognized across the industry. You can easily look up these numbers on the USDA website. Providing the IMPS number when placing a special order ensures you’ll get the correct cut, even if the local name varies.
• Look at the USDA’s retail market reports for your area. They’re issued weekly for beef, pork, turkey, chicken, and other products, and they provide average prices by region. They’re a useful tool for figuring out whether that flyer price is a genuine bargain. You can sometimes find wholesale pricing online too, which gives you leverage if you have a butcher you can negotiate with.
• Check store flyers before you go shopping to take advantage of sales or limited-time doorbusters. Plan your meals around the weekly specials rather than choosing a meal ahead of time and shopping for it later. This strategy works whether you check flyers at home or find deals in the store.
• Build a relationship with your butcher or supermarket meatcutter. While independent butchers have more freedom to negotiate prices, they’re also more conscious of costs and overhead. Supermarket meatcutters are more limited in what they can order, but may be open to bringing in what you request if it’s in their store system — though they may ask for a minimum purchase commitment.
• Consider buying in bulk if you have the freezer space. It helps with those special requests at the meat counter, and you can often get a better price for large bundles. For extra-large purchases, like a side of beef or a whole hog, pooling with friends or neighbors makes the investment more practical and easier on your wallet.
