People keep saying you need fancy cuts of meat for good soup and it drives me nuts

I made a beef stew last week with a $4 pack of beef neck bones from the butcher, simmered for 3 hours. It was the richest broth I've ever had. Everyone acts like you need chuck roast or short ribs, but those cheap bones have way more flavor. How many other cheap cuts are people sleeping on just because they sound weird?

2 comments

2 Comments

roseb472mo ago

Read an article about how the meat industry basically invented the idea of "premium" cuts to sell less popular parts for more money. Oxtail used to be dirt cheap until food writers caught on. My local grocery store sells beef shanks for stew meat at half the price of chuck, and they make a killer gravy. People are paying for the name, not the flavor.

mia_fox982mo ago

Totally... it's wild how these things flip. I remember when skirt steak was basically trash meat, now it's on fancy menus for twenty bucks. They just wait for something to get trendy, then the price shoots up. It's all about making us feel like we're buying something special, even if it's the same animal. Honestly, the cheap, tough cuts often have way more flavor anyway, they just take longer to cook.