What Is The Most Tender Beef For Stew?

Muscles, Collagen, Toughness, and Tenderness

The more a muscle is used and used to support the animal, the more collagen you’re likely to find in it. The stronger the muscle is and the more it has to support the animal, the more collagen you’re likely to find in it. Because it is a weak muscle with little collagen, beef tenderloin is very tender and gets its name from this property. Conversely, a cow’s chuck muscles, which support a large portion of its body weight, are extremely strong, collagen-rich, and, you guessed it: tough. Age (younger animals have more of it) and other factors also influence the amount of collagen, but the biggest predictors within any given animal are how much a muscle is used and how strong it is.

Why Collagen-Rich Beef Is Good in a Stew

You may be wondering what this has to do with stew at this point. And, once again, the answer is collagen. See, when collagen is raw, it’s incredibly tough; you won’t have any luck chewing through it without completely tearing a ligament, but if you cook it long enough, it will turn into meltingly soft gelatin, giving the meat a moist and tender texture. The surrounding stew liquids will also absorb that gelatin, increasing their viscosity and giving them a rich body. A low-collagen, tender-when-raw cut like tenderloin, however, will become horribly tough and dry after three hours of simmering.

I simmered a lean, lacking in collagen beef eye round for two hours to demonstrate. The image below demonstrates the cut’s minimal marbling, which includes intramuscular fat and connective tissue (i e. , collagen)—when raw. When fully cooked, it’s essentially a stew’s worst nightmare, consisting only of compact bundles of dried-out muscle fiber.

What’s interesting about all of this is that when beef is cooked, moisture is lost roughly in the same proportions regardless of how much collagen it contains. I weighed two equal portions of beef, each 630 grams in weight, one chuck (which has a lot of collagen and connective tissue) and the other eye round (which has very little), simmered them for two hours, and then weighed them again. The eye round lost 275 grams, while the chuck lost 254 grams, a tiny 21-gram difference. That means both cuts dry out similarly, but the chuck appears to be more moist when eaten thanks to the gelatin in it.

Finding tough beef cuts with lots of collagen and fat for stews is therefore key. which still leaves us with a large selection of cows. I browned each of the six most popular tough cuts, then simmered them all in water until tender, which took, in most cases, about two hours.

The Best Cuts of Beef for Stews

Some of the best cuts of beef for stewing are listed below, producing meat that is juicy and tender even after extensive cooking:

• Chuck
• Bone-in short rib
• Bohemian (Bottom Sirloin Flap)
• Oxtail
• Fatty brisket (“point” or “second cut”)
• Cross-cut shanks

Now let’s examine each one more closely to determine its benefits and drawbacks.

Beef Stewing Cut Closer Look: Chuck

The shoulder, neck, and upper arm muscles are all present in the chuck, a primal cut taken from the forequarter of the cow. But when I refer to the “chuck” here, I only mean the meat from the area around the shoulder, not the arm or neck parts. Its relatively low cost, excellent flavor, and abundance of connective tissue and fat make it a very desirable option for stews. The drawback is that because chuck is composed of so many different muscles, you are more likely to receive irregularly shaped pieces, some of which may be leaner or fatter or tender or tougher. Overall, it averages out in a good way.

Verdict: This is your workhorse stew cut. Its readily available and affordable, and it performs admirably.

Beef Stewing Cut Closer Look: Bone-In Short Rib

Instead of the rib primal, as one might anticipate, short ribs come from a primal cut on the underside of the cow called the plate. They are essentially the ribs at the bottom, where they approach the belly. They are typically more expensive than chuck, and you must take into account that part of what you’re paying for is bone weight, but they provide a rich, beefy flavor with an exquisite, even grain.

Conclusion: Short ribs are the way to go if you want consistency in both texture and flavor, but they are expensive.

Beef Stewing Cut Closer Look: Bohemian (Bottom Sirloin Flap)

Unless you visit a reputable butcher, this cut is a little more difficult to find. It originates from the cow’s sirloin, which is located directly in front of the animal’s legs. It used to be left attached to T-bone steaks (which gave the steaks the appearance of having long, thin tails), but these days it’s sold separately, according to a butchery book I have. The cut is delicious when cooked over high, dry heat, such as when grilling because it becomes meaty and buttery. But it also turns out to be a good stew meat. If I had to compare the flavor and texture, it would almost resemble the offspring of a short rib and a hanger steak, being sufficiently tender but still chewy.

Conclusion: If you enjoy strong beef flavors and don’t mind taking a little longer to chew, you might enjoy this.

Beef Stewing Cut Closer Look: Oxtail

To me, oxtails are one of, if not the, most delectable cuts of meat to come from a cow. (I can’t decide between them and tongue; they are both my favorites.) (They are the most flavorful cut I can think of and pack more gelatin and fat. Each cross section of the tail has a bone in the middle that is filled with marrow; oh boy, their flavor. Rendering fat from the marrow leaks out as they cook, basting the meat and giving everything an amazing flavor. The drawback, however, is that those bones contribute significantly to their weight and require a significant amount of labor. If you want an oxtail stew, you will need to fish the bones out of the sauce at the end, remove the meat, and then discard the bones before adding the meat back to the pot. Because you have to separate the meat from the bones, your final stew is likely to contain more bits and shreds of beef rather than nice little cubes.

One more thing to keep in mind: In my tests, it took the oxtails almost three hours to become tender enough to serve, and they could have used another hour if I’d wanted the meat to fall off the bones. With the exception of shanks, which also required three hours, the other cuts I tested took two hours.

Conclusion: Their flavor is unmatched, and they’ll give your stew more gelatin than you can handle, but it comes at the expense of an excessively long cooking time, low meat yield per pound, and a lot of labor-intensive bone-picking.

Beef Stewing Cut Closer Look: Brisket (“Point” or “Second Cut”)

Cow’s breast is used to make brisket, which is typically smoked for barbecue and cured to make pastrami. It is also frequently braised whole. It is divided into two sections: the fatter point, also known as the “deckle,” and the leaner flat, also known as the “first cut.” The point is much juicier and moister than the lean flat, which is unfortunate because the point is much easier to find and has more fat in it. Because the flat will turn out tough and dry when used for stews, you’ll need that difficult-to-find point. Brisket’s affordability is one of its best qualities; at my butcher, it was less expensive than the chuck. It was moist and had a strong beef tallow flavor after a couple of hours in the stew pot, much more so than the other cuts due to its substantial fat content. The muscle fibers are thick and almost ropy, which I didn’t enjoy in a stew.

Conclusion: Due to its ropy muscle fibers and lower price, the point cut of brisket is my least favorite.

Beef Stewing Cut Closer Look: Cross-Cut Shanks

Osso buco uses this cut, which is most well-known for being used in that dish, even though it usually comes from veal. Since it is a cross section of the cow’s legs, the single large bone in the middle is present. The cost of beef shanks is typically not cheap, and on top of that, each piece of meat contains a significant portion of bone (though, as an added bonus, you get to eat the marrow afterward!). Although the meat is generally moist, some of the muscles in the shank, as you can see in the left-hand photo above, have more visible threads of connective tissue than others, and those lacking them can come out on the dry side after prolonged cooking. However, those thicker connective tissue strands need more time to cook than usual; mine needed about three hours of simmering to become tender.

Conclusion: I would not recommend using shanks for stew meat due to the time required to prepare them, the cost, the weight of the bones, and the wide range in moistness.

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FAQ

What is the most tender stewing beef?

Here are some of the best beef cuts for stews that will produce meat that is juicy and tender even after extensive cooking:Chuck Bone-in short rib. Bohemian (Bottom Sirloin Flap)Oxtail. Fatty brisket (“point” or “second cut”)Cross-cut shanks.

What is the secret to tender beef stew?

Cooking stew meat for an extended period of time is the most crucial factor in ensuring that it is tender. Beef must be cooked on a low heat in a Dutch oven on the stovetop or a slow cooker for at least a few hours if you want it to be extremely tender.

What cut of beef should I use for beef stew?

The best stew meat cuts, such as chuck or shoulder cuts, are lean with a high concentration of connective tissues rich in collagen and some fat marbling for flavor. Legs and other muscle-filled areas of the animal are where lean cuts of meat are found.

Which is more tender stew meat or chuck roast?

There is no better cut of meat for beef stew than chuck, so buy a thick chuck pot roast and cut it into chunks for the most tender flavor. The best beef stew can be made with chuck roast, a tougher meat than sirloin or rib roast, which benefits greatly from pressure cooking or slow cooking.