Beef Glossary: A Glossary Of The Different Beef Types & Beef Cuts Diagram

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If you’re looking for the definition of a particular cut of beef, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s the lingo butchers and other industry professionals use as they cut beef. (If you’d like to suggest additional words, click here.)  On this page of the glossary, you’ll find terms such as aged beef, beef bacon, beef cheeks, beef jerky, beef stew meat, Black Angus beef and an answer to the question, What is beef? When looking up beef cuts, it’s helpful to refer to the beef cut diagram, courtesy of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association. If you enjoy this Beef Glossary, we have a food glossary for almost every category of food—including a Lamb Glossary and a Pork Glossary.

Download your own beef cuts chart (pdf).

The long, triangular-shaped muscle from the fibrous underside of a flank of beef. A traditional preparation is marinated, broiled rare and sliced thin against the grain of the beef (London Broil is a misnomer, as the dish did not originate in London). Flank steaks, along with sirloin steaks, have a robust, beefy flavor, but they are substantially tougher. Thus, they are generally marinated or cooked using a moist method such as braising. They also can be rolled and stuffed, then baked in the oven or cooked in a crock pot. See London broil.

Before World War II, virtually all cattle grazed on grass. Postwar agribusiness, aided by federal subsidies, produced huge surpluses of corn, which found its way into animal feed and led to today’s feed lot cattle production (see The Meatrix). Grass fed cattle are free-range, pastured animals that graze on grass for most of the year, except during the cold winter months, when they are fed hay.

While some grass-fed cattle are fed grain during the winter months (better animals are corn-fed, lesser animals eat cheaper feed mixes), the American Grass fed Association (AGA) is working to standardize the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines for labeling meat. Their definition of grass-fed is “those food products from animals that have eaten nothing but their mother’s milk and fresh grass or grass-type hay from birth to harvest—all all their lives.” The issue is currently further complicated in that some breeders supplement grain with grass or hay year-round, and some meat is labeled “pasture raised,” that comes from animals that are not strictly grass-fed. Yet other animals are raised on grass yet finished with grain (i.e., fed a grain diet in the months prior to harvesting). So, standards are needed so consumers know what they are buying.

The type of feed has an impact on the flavor of the meat: Grass-fed beef looks, smells and tastes slightly different from grain-fed beef, which has a nuttier taste from the animal’s corn diet. Grass-fed beef is healthier: It has about half the saturated fat of grain-fed beef and therefore is lower in calories and cholesterol. It also is higher in vitamin A, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA, a potent anti-carcinogen) and omega-3 fatty acids (grain-fed beef has none). On the down side, grass-fed beef is more expensive; the animals take longer to come to maturity.

Because it is leaner, grass-fed beef needs to be cooked more carefully. Less fat also means less marbling, so it is downgraded by USDA beef grading standards, which work in favor of marbling.

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Photo courtesy Holistic Wellness Network.

This is beef that has been ground or finely chopped. That which is labeled generic “ground beef” or “hamburger” is generally the trimmings of the cheapest cuts, such as brisket and shank. These cuts can be up to 30% fat, which will have the greatest shrinkage. The next level up is ground chuck at 15% to 20% fat, generally considered to be the best balance of flavor and shrinkage. The leanest meats, ground round or sirloin, are best eaten rare or medium rare because they don’t have enough fat content to keep from drying out with further cooking. Ground beef is used for meatballs, meat loaf, meat sauces, hamburger and other dishes. By the way, hamburger was popular among the Russian Tartars, who shredded the tougher cuts of beef and gave us the name for Steak Tartare. They introduced the dish to Germany before the 14th century.

The Germans added spices and the dish, served both cooked and raw, became popular among people of limited means. In Hamburg, it became known as “Hamburg steak,” and came to the U.S. in the 1880s with the German immigration, where it became a “hamburger steak” and finally a “hamburger.” It also traveled to England, where Dr. J. H. Salisbury, a hearty beef eater, championed the shredding of all foods to improve digestibility (see Salisbury steak). The arrival of the bun is not known for certain, although by the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, the hamburger was already a sandwich. Louis’ Lunch in New Haven claims to have served up the original burger in the U.S. in 1900, putting a beef patty, tomato, onion, and cheese between two slices of toasted white bread—no ketchup or mustard. They still serve it the same way.
 

A cut from near the center of the diaphragm, hanger steak is flavorful and very tender towards the edges, but sinewy in the middle. It is best marinated and grilled or broiled, and served rare or medium-rare to avoid toughness. It’s called hanger because it “hangs” independently from the diaphragm of the steer, between the rib and the loin—it is not connected to bone. It is a supportive muscle rather than an active muscle; thus it is more tender than, for example, thigh or leg meat, giving it the nickname “hanging tender.” There is only one hanger steak per animal and the entire cut typically weighs just 1 to 1.5 pounds. It is also known as “butcher’s steak” because butchers would often keep it for themselves rather than offer it for sale. In France it is called onglet, in Italian lombatello, and in Spanish solomillo de pulmon. In the United States, it has only recently become popular; formerly, it was not separated as an individual cut but sold as part of the flank.

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Cooked, it looks like this (photo courtesy E.E. Roadhouse)

The results of a decade-long study of 500,000 Americans was published in the March 23, 2009 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine. The participants were men and women ages 50 to 71 in a National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. According to a review by Jane E. Brody in the April 28, 2009 issue of The New York Times (p. D7), the study found that, other things being equal, men and women who consumed the most red meat and processed meat (such as hot dogs) were likely to die sooner, especially from the two leading U.S. killers, heart disease and cancer, than people who consumed much smaller quantities of red meat. The study suggests that people who consume a lot of red meat should eat a hamburger once or twice a week instead of every day, a small steak once a week instead of every other day and a hot dog every six weeks instead of once a week. Red meat should be replaced by poultry and fish. These foods contain less saturated fat than red meat, and fish contains omega-3 fatty acids that have been linked in several large studies to heart benefits. In addition, according to Dr. Barry Popkin, one of the editors of the report, a reduced dependence on livestock for food could help save the planet from the ravaging effects of environmental pollution, global warming and the depletion of potable water. Livestock production accounts for 55% of the erosion process, 37% of pesticides applied, 50% of antibiotics consumed and 1/3 of total discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface water.

Yak meat is leaner than steer: It is 95%–97% lean. Grass-fed without hormones or antibiotics, yak is also low in palmitic acid (which causes bad cholesterol)—it has about 20% that of beef. The red meat is sweet and delicately flavored like bison. It is ranch raised and never gamey.

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Lifestyle Direct, Inc. Some definitions were provided by the Cattlemen’s Beef Board  and are © Copyright 2005 Cattlemen’s Beef Board. All rights reserved. Images are the copyright of their respective owners.