The Costco Trick That'll Get You More Steak For Your Buck

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Social media has delivered quite a few amazing shopping hacks over the years, but this one is a meat-lover's dream. Costco members have discovered a way to save anywhere from $3 to $5 per pound on steaks, and it doesn't require any app downloads or coupon clipping. Instead of buying pre-sliced steaks, shoppers are buying vacuum-sealed primal cuts and slicing the much larger hunks of meat into individual steaks themselves. You can get around a dozen steaks out of just one beef primal, depending on the cut, and can butcher it in your own kitchen with just a few tools.

Cutting through all that meat takes some effort, but the right knife makes the job a lot easier (make sure it's sharp!). Use a 10- to 12-inch butcher knife designed to cut through larger meat chunks, and keep a boning knife on hand if you want to make any additional delicate cuts — like separating bones from the meat. People who have posted their attempts at the hack online have added one more pro tip: freeze the vacuum-sealed beef primal for an hour before butchering to make it easier to process.

Use butcher's paper or a vacuum sealer like the FoodSaver to package your steaks individually and keep them fresh in your freezer as long as possible. When packaged correctly, steak can last up to a year in the freezer, though general guidance is to use it within three to six months for the best flavor.

Cutting your own steaks can save you money, but there are a few things to know before you dive into the project. Primal cuts are the starting point of every single steak, and there are eight different areas of the cow that they come from: rib, loin, flank, round, chuck, brisket, shank, and short plate. Butchers slice these primal cuts into sub-primal meat cuts and then chop those down into individually-portioned steaks.

Costco carries a variety of vacuum-sealed beef primal cuts, but those who are trying the steak hack on social media gravitate toward a certain section of the loin primal, which can supply 11 to 13 T-bone, tenderloin, or filet minion steaks: the top loin. You can expect 10 to 14 bone-in or boneless ribeye steaks from a rib primal cut – look for the one marked "Ribeye Roast" at Costco (here's the difference between bone-in and boneless ribeye). The short plate primal cut supplies skirt steak, hanger steak, and short ribs (cook those up with anchovies and olives in this Sicilian beef recipe).