A beef cuts chart divides the animal into eight primal sections: chuck, rib, loin, round, flank, short plate, brisket, and shank. Cuts from the rib and loin, along the middle of the back, are the most tender and suit fast, hot cooking. Cuts from the chuck, round, brisket, plate, and shank come from hard-working muscles with more connective tissue, so they need slow, moist cooking or grinding. Knowing which primal a cut comes from tells you how to cook it and what you are trading off when you fill out a cut sheet.
This chart is built for people buying a quarter, half, or whole beef from a farm or butcher, but it works just as well at the meat counter. For each primal it lists the common cuts, how tender they are, how to cook them, and the decisions you will face when ordering.
Why location on the animal decides tenderness
Muscles that do a lot of work, such as the shoulder and legs, are full of connective tissue. That tissue makes them tough when cooked quickly, but it breaks down into gelatin with long, slow, moist heat, which is why a braised chuck roast falls apart. Muscles along the back, such as the ribeye and tenderloin, do little work. They are tender with almost no cooking but have less connective tissue to turn into richness.
So the basic rule is simple: the closer a cut is to the middle of the back, the faster you can cook it. The closer it is to the shoulders, legs, or belly, the slower.
The beef cuts chart by primal
| Primal | Common cuts | Tenderness | Best cooking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chuck (shoulder) | Chuck roast, chuck eye steak, flat iron, Denver steak, stew meat, much of the ground beef | Mostly tough, a few tender muscles | Braise, pot roast, slow cook, smoke; flat iron and chuck eye can be grilled |
| Rib | Ribeye steak, rib roast (prime rib), back ribs | Very tender, well marbled | Grill, pan sear, roast |
| Loin (short loin and sirloin) | Strip steak, T-bone, porterhouse, tenderloin (filet), top sirloin, tri-tip, sirloin cap | Tender to very tender | Grill, sear, roast; tri-tip grills or smokes well |
| Round (rear leg) | Top round, bottom round, eye of round, sirloin tip, cube steak, ground beef | Lean and firm | Roast and slice thin, braise, jerky, grind |
| Flank | Flank steak | Lean, long grain, moderately tender if sliced right | Marinate, grill hot and fast, slice across the grain |
| Short plate | Skirt steak, short ribs, ground beef | Skirt is flavorful and tender if sliced thin; short ribs need slow cooking | Skirt: grill hot; short ribs: braise or smoke |
| Brisket | Whole brisket, flat, point | Tough, lots of connective tissue | Smoke or braise low and slow |
| Shank (foreshank and hind shank) | Shank cross cuts (osso buco style), soup bones, ground beef | Very tough, rich in collagen | Braise, soup, stock |
Chuck: the most useful primal for a family
The chuck is a big section and produces a lot of your share. Most of it becomes roasts, stew meat, and ground beef, which are the cuts many families actually cook most. Hidden inside are a few tender muscles worth asking for by name: the flat iron, the chuck eye steak (sometimes called a poor man's ribeye because it sits next to the rib), and the Denver steak.
Cut sheet decisions: roast size (2 to 3 pounds suits a small family, 4 to 5 pounds feeds a crowd), whether to cut some roasts into stew meat, and whether to send the rest to ground beef. If you like pot roast, keep more roasts. If you mostly cook burgers and tacos, grind more.
Rib: ribeye or prime rib, not both from the same section
The rib section gives you either ribeye steaks or a standing rib roast. They are the same muscle, so every rib roast you keep is ribeyes you will not get. Decide based on how you cook. Steaks suit weeknights. A rib roast suits a holiday table.
Cut sheet decisions: bone-in or boneless, steak thickness (1 to 1.5 inches is the usual range for grilling), and whether to keep the back ribs or leave them on.
Loin: the trade-off between T-bones and filet
The short loin holds the strip and the tenderloin, separated by a T-shaped bone. Cut it into T-bones and porterhouses, and each steak includes a piece of both. Cut it the other way, and you get boneless strip steaks plus a whole tenderloin you can portion into filets. You cannot have both from the same side of beef, because the tenderloin is either in the T-bones or it is not.
The sirloin, behind the short loin, gives top sirloin steaks, the tri-tip, and the sirloin cap. These are good value: flavorful, reasonably tender, and great on the grill.
Cut sheet decisions: T-bones and porterhouses, or strips and filet; steak thickness; and whether to keep tri-tip whole for roasting or smoking.
Round: lean cuts that reward careful cooking
The round is the back leg, lean and firm. Top round and eye of round make good roasts when cooked to medium rare and sliced very thin, and they are the classic choice for roast beef sandwiches and jerky. Bottom round does better braised. A lot of round also goes to cube steak and ground beef.
Cut sheet decisions: how many roasts versus ground beef, whether you want cube steak, and whether to set some aside for jerky.
Flank, plate, and brisket: the flavor cuts
The underside of the animal produces some of the most flavorful cuts, all of which need the right technique.
- Flank steak takes a marinade well and should be grilled hot and sliced thin across the grain. There is only one per side, so there is not much of it.
- Skirt steak, from the plate, is the fajita cut. Grill it very hot and slice it across the grain.
- Short ribs come from the plate and chuck. Ask for English cut (thick pieces along the bone) for braising, or flanken cut (thin strips across the bones) for Korean-style grilling.
- Brisket is the barbecue cut. Keep it whole if you smoke, or have it split into the flat and point if you braise in a home oven.
Cut sheet decisions: keep short ribs or grind them, keep brisket whole or split, and keep the skirt and flank or let them go to grind.
Shank and ground beef
Shanks are tough and full of collagen, which makes them excellent for braising and for soup. Ask for cross-cut shanks if you want osso buco style pieces, and soup bones if you make stock. Anything you do not choose to keep as steaks or roasts usually ends up as ground beef, which is why ground beef is the largest single item in most shares.
Because ground beef is the item most families cook most often, size your share around how much of it you actually use in a month. Running out of ground beef halfway through the year is the most common complaint from first-time share buyers.
Cut sheet decisions: lean-to-fat ratio for the grind if your processor offers a choice, package size (1 pound is standard, 2 pounds suits bigger families), and whether to have some made into patties.
A worked example: what a half beef turns into
Prices and yields on a share are based on hanging weight, the weight of the carcass after slaughter and before cutting. Take-home weight is lower because of bone, fat trim, and moisture loss during aging. Many processors and farm guides estimate take-home at roughly 60 to 65 percent of hanging weight, though bone-in versus boneless choices move it.
For a half beef with a 350 pound hanging weight, that works out to about 210 to 228 pounds of packaged beef. In a typical cut plan, ground beef is the largest share, followed by roasts and stew meat, then steaks. The more you choose boneless cuts and leaner grind, the lower the take-home weight, but you are not paying freezer space for bone. Our guide to hanging weight explains how that number is set and why it matters for price.
Cooking temperatures to keep handy
For food safety, USDA guidance is 145 degrees F with a three minute rest for whole cuts such as steaks and roasts, and 160 degrees F for ground beef. Many people cook tender steaks to a lower doneness by preference, but ground beef should always reach 160 because grinding spreads surface bacteria throughout the meat. Tough cuts such as brisket and chuck roast are cooked far past those temperatures on purpose, often into the 190s F, so the connective tissue breaks down.
Turning the chart into a cut sheet
A cut sheet is just this chart turned into decisions. Before you fill one out:
- List what your household cooks most in a normal month.
- Decide the big trade-offs: ribeyes or rib roast, T-bones or strips and filet, brisket and short ribs or more ground beef.
- Pick steak thickness, roast size, and ground beef package size.
- Ask about extras such as soup bones, organ meat, and fat for rendering.
Two habits make the first share go smoothly. Ask the processor for their standard cut list before you start, because many shops have defaults for roast size and steak thickness that you only need to change where you care. And write down what you chose. When the beef is gone, you will know whether you ran out of ground beef in month four or still had roasts left at month ten, and your next cut sheet will be better for it.
For a line-by-line walk-through of the form itself, see how to read a beef cut sheet, and if you are still deciding on a share size, start with how to buy a beef share. ButcherBud helps you find farms and butchers near you that sell beef by the quarter, half, and whole, so you can put this chart to work on your own order.