A Certified Angus® tenderloin, larded with a strip of bacon. Photo courtesy of RockyMountainSteaks.com.

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June 2005
Updated March 2008

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Beef

Beef Glossary & Beef Cut Diagram

Where’s The Beef? Find Your Cut Of Meat Here!

If you’re looking for the definition of a particular cut of meat, 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.)  When looking up cuts of meat, 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.

Click on the letter of the alphabet in this bar to get to a term
without having to scroll manually:

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AGING

Refers to wholesale beef cuts that are held at refrigerated temperatures for a specified period of time in order to optimize the tenderness and flavor of the product. See Dry Aging and Wet Aging.

BABY BACK RIBS or BACK RIBS

While most people think of baby back ribs (or simply, back ribs) as pork, they are also available from a steer. Also called loin ribs, they come from the top back of the rib cage, where the bones are short (“baby”) but meaty. Spare ribs, which come from the front, or belly side, have more fat, but the meat is “spare.”

BARBECUE or BARBEQUE or BBQ or BAR-B-QUE

A method of cooking food, often meat, over smoking wood or hot coals. Often, meats are marinated to tenderize tougher cuts, and rubbed with spices and/or basted with sauce. In the U.S., barbecue is a Southern tradition, with each state specializing in a different meat, seasoning and cooking technique. The term also refers to the food itself, and the apparatus used to cook the food.

BISON Perhaps the most misunderstood beast in the animal kingdom is the bison. Native to North America, its own government calls it a buffalo, having yielded to folk pressure (“Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam...” and misnamed a piece of currency, that, in return, has misinformed an entire populace. From a zoological standpoint, there are no buffalo in the Americas (except for a few imported from Africa and Asia for zoos, and small herds of Asian water buffalo imported to make water buffalo milk cheese and yogurt). Our bison are not related to the African and Asian buffalo, and you can read the facts. Confusion notwithstanding, bison meat is superb: lean and healthy, tender and flavorful. Try it and you’ll be converted. Just as with beef, however, good bison meat comes from good ranchers. Our favorite is Blackwing Bison.

Why does everyone think I’m a buffalo? Because the U.S. Treasury Department erroneously coined the buffalo nickel. I’m a bison. There are no buffalo in America! Photo by Jack Dykinga, U.S. Agricultural Research Service.

BLADE STEAK

The blade steak is cut from the chuck. The cut is not popular because it has a line of tough connective tissue down its center, resulting in a tough steak best suited to braising. However, if the tissue is removed, it produces flatiron steaks, a most tasty, tender and value-priced cut.
Photo courtesy of Jace Hentges | Wikipedia.

BLOOM

Refers to the process of beef changing from a dark purple (as seen in vacuum-packaged meat) to bright cherry-red color when exposed to oxygen.

BONELESS ROAST

A general term covering eye of round roast, bottom round roast, and cross rib roasts.

BONELESS STRIP STEAK

See New York Strip Steak.

BOTTOM ROUND ROAST

A large roast, typically ranging in size from 2 to 3 pounds. This cut is ideal for the slow, moist crock pot style of cooking, or wrapped in foil and cooked in the oven at 250°F for four to six hours.

BRISKET

Brisket is a flavorful cut of meat from the breast or lower chest, directly behind the fore shank. It is best suited for long-cooking preparations like barbecue, braising, smoking, slow roasting, casseroles and stews. See also Pot Roast.
Photo at right, courtesy of GlacierBeef.com.

BSE

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease, is a fatal brain disorder that occurs in cattle. The connection between BSE and humans was uncovered in Great Britain in the 1990s when several young people died of a rare brain disorder called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which typically strikes elderly people. The British government concluded that BSE was probably the cause of CJD, and that the victims contracted the disease probably by eating meat from BSE-infected cows.

BUTCHER’S STEAK

See Hanger Steak.

BUTT STEAK

See Sirloin.

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Go To Glossary Alphabet Index, Above

© Copyright 2005- 2008 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.