• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
The Art of Doing Stuff
menu icon
go to homepage
  • HOUSE
  • COOKING
  • GARDEN
  • HOW-TO
  • EXTRA
  • Subscribe
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
  • search icon
    Homepage link
    • HOUSE
    • COOKING
    • GARDEN
    • HOW-TO
    • EXTRA
    • Subscribe
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
  • ×
    Home » Cooking Tips

    How to Trim and Cut a Roast into Steaks

    September 13, 2010 by Karen 35 Comments

    Pin165
    Share
    Email
    165 Shares

    You know that silvery colour firewood gets after it's been cut and sitting around for a few months?  Until it is that exact colour, my mother doesn't think her steak is done.  Sort of a grey driftwood, cardboard box kind of colour.

    Growing up I took it for granted that steaks and roasts were supposed to be hard and chewy.  Like jerky without  the flavour.  Cook it any less and you might get cramps.  Or worms.  Or "the" diarrhoea.  When I got outside of my mother's anglo-saxon, white bread, peas in a can inspired kitchen and was offered a real steak ...  well ... I nearly vomited.

    All that redness.  It resembled ... um ... meat.  Blech.  It took about 5 years before I could handle eating a steak that didn't look like something you'd bury a hamster in.

    And once I figured out steaks could be nicely  seared on the outside and warm and tender on the inside without disastrous intestinal consequences ... I developed a bit of an addiction.

    An expensive one at that.  If I'd developed an addiction to platinum dusted cocaine it would have been cheaper.  A single really good steak is about $20.   A half decent one is probably $10.  So in order to feed my addiction and maintain a bank balance, I started cutting my own steaks from whole roasts.  I haven't bought a butcher cut steak in about 12 years.

    And here's how you do it.

    How to Cut Tenderloin Steaks. Filet Mignon.

    How to trim a tenderloin roast and cut it into steaks.

    TIPS

    1.  The best roast for cutting into steaks is a Tenderloin.  That's my personal preference anyway.  Stiploins comes in at #2.  You can also do a Sirloin Tip (only for rare or medium-rare steaks otherwise they get tough), Top  Sirloin and Prime Rib (Rib Eye steaks).

    2.  Look for a roast that is as close to an even thickness from one end to the other as you can find.  Visualize cutting it into steaks.  If you can only get 3 or 4 steaks cut before the roast gets thin looking, pick another one.  (this only pertains to a tenderloin)

    Would you like to save this stuff?

    We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.

    3.  The best way to preserve your steaks is to Foodsaver them.  Freeze the steaks on a waxed paper lined baking sheet first, and then Foodsaver them.  Otherwise the Foodsaver will squash the steaks.  If you wait to Foodsaver until they're frozen they won't get squashed.

    4.  Cutting your own steaks from a whole roast will always be cheaper than buying them pre-cut.  But if you buy the roasts when they're on sale you'll save even more money!  Yay!  I usually wait until my local grocery store or Costco has Tenderloin roasts for half price then I buy at least 3 and turn 1 into a 2 smaller roasts and the rest into steaks.  Just after I shot this video my grocery store had tenderloins on sale and I did a few more roasts.  These tenderloin steaks ended up costing me $5 each.

    5.  Always cut and freeze your roasts the day you buy them.  That way when you go to pull them out of the freezer to cook, they'll be as fresh as they day you bought them.  Not lousy old, been sitting around in the fridge for a few days meat.  Good meat.

    6. Use the leftover trimmings as either stewing beef, stir fry meat or just grill up the irregular chunks and eat em. That's what I did. I even grilled some of the stuff I'd cut up for stewing beef. Little cubes of seared deliciousness. They'd be GREAT appetizers. All they need is a bit of spice and one of those cool toothpicks with the squiggly cellophane on the end. I love those toothpicks.

    Happy butchering! (or Bitchering depending on your mood) Happy money saving! Happy eating.

    →Hey there! GET MY POSTS emailed to you 3 times a week←

     

    More Cooking Tips

    • Clear, filtered maple syrup made at home.
      Maple Syrup Grades Explained.
    • What To Do With Sour Grapes
    • How to Make Homemade Butter (in Just 1-1.5 Years) 😆
    • How to Make Garlic Powder (or Onion)

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

      Leave a Reply Cancel reply

      Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

      Recipe Rating




      The maximum upload file size: 512 MB. You can upload: image, audio. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

    1. Kat - the other 1

      April 30, 2021 at 10:18 am

      How to cut tenderloin steaks - The Movie!!
      ;D

      Reply
    2. Dgwinc.mlb@gmail.com

      January 12, 2020 at 7:58 pm

      Karen,
      Your blog is fabulous. I enjoy it everytime.
      Thank you so much!

      Reply
      • Karen

        January 12, 2020 at 11:41 pm

        Thank YOU! ~ karen

        Reply
    3. Dale

      September 29, 2016 at 1:52 pm

      1. Jessica... take a chill pill and become a real human.
      2. Zak... ain't no difference between a "fresh" steak and a frozen steak.

      Karen (or others visiting this blog), have you ever wet or dry aged your roast before cutting into steaks? My local Fareway will put a whole fillet or roast (still in it's wrapping, unfrozen) into their cooler for a month and them call me to pick it up. They will cut and wrap it for free. I tell them how thick and how many per package. The aging breaks down the connective tissue for a much more tender steak.

      Reply
    « Older Comments

    Primary Sidebar

    SHOP ON AMAZON

    Use it 👆 to support my work. LEARN MORE

    My name is Karen Bertelsen and I was a television host. In Canada. Which means in terms of notoriety and wealth, I was somewhere on par with the manager of a Sunset Tan in Wisconsin.

    I quit television to start a blog with the goal that I could make my living through blogging and never have to host a television show again. And it’s worked out. I’m making a living blogging. If you’re curious, this is how I do that.

    So I’m doing this in reverse basically. I’m the only blogger who is trying to NOT get a TV show.

    More about me 👋

    Seasonal Articles

    • The English Cottage Garden Year 8 (Spring)
    • Turtles Can Fly, and Other June Discoveries
    • How to Clean a Crystal Chandelier
    • Garden Tool Handle Repair
    • 👉 14 Common Garden Oddities (and What to Do About Them)
    • How Does a Venus Flytrap Work? Meet Maureen

    Popular Articles

    • This Is Where I Try To Buy Your Love
    • Guaranteed Crispy Sweet Potato Fries & Sriracha Mayo Dip
    • A Year Full of Pots: Win Sarah Raven's New Book
    • The Difference Between People Who Eat Mayo & People Who Eat Miracle Whip
    • Your FIRST look at my new kitchen in Canadian Living Magazine.
    • How to Print an Image on Wood.

    Footer

    as seen in

    About

    • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy

    Newsletter

    • Sign Up! for emails and updates

    Social

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    162 shares