This Costco Hack Will Help You Buy Beef for Less

If you tell me I can acquire quality meat for an affordable price, I’ll be sprinting to whichever grocery store you name. And because I recently came across an easy trick to get inexpensive beef at Costco, courtesy of TikTok, that's where you'll find me.

Scoring meat for less money at the popular Washington-headquartered warehouse club is actually very easy and doesn’t involve skirting any rules — all you have to do is buy uncut or bulk amounts of meat. Although it’s easy to forget, steaks come from larger pieces of beef and are sliced into individual servings. For example, you can cut a rib roast into ribeyes, a sirloin into sirloin steaks, beef tenderloin into filet mignon, or a strip loin roast into New York strips. Or if you want something that requires even less prep, but still leverages this Costco tip, you can snag a giant 10-pound tube of ground beef.

Larger pieces of meat like these might have a higher total sticker price, but they’re often significantly cheaper per pound at Costco. The exact cost per pound will vary depending on which location you visit, but customers typically save a few dollars per pound. 

One TikTok user documented a price difference of $2.40 per pound between a vacuum-sealed piece of uncut New York strip loin and a package of pre-sliced strip steaks. The 10-pound tubes of lean ground beef are typically less than $5 per pound — to give a point of comparison, a major grocery store near me currently sells ground beef with the same fat ratio for $9.79 per pound.

Saving a few dollars per pound may not seem worth it, but it really adds up if you’re shopping for a family or feeding a crowd. (Say you get $2.40 off on each pound of New York strip steak, and you purchase 16 pounds of meat; that saves you nearly $40.) Even if you’re only buying groceries for yourself, you can simply freeze meat for later dates.

The first step to taking advantage of any of these options is to talk to your butcher. It might seem intimidating, but they’re there to help. Beyond that, these larger pieces of meat are often not put on display. Go to the window at Costco’s meat department and ask for the item that you’re looking for. Butchers can also advise you on other options that will help save money, like a whole side of salmon that can be divided into four- or five-ounce portions.

From there, you just need to know how to properly cut up a large piece of meat, freeze portions so that they last as long as possible, and safely thaw them. 

How do you cut a roast into steaks?

Turning a rib roast, strip loin roast, sirloin, or beef tenderloin into steaks is really as simple as slicing it, but there are a few tips that will make it easier. First things first: Make sure the meat is thoroughly dry so it doesn't move around, and place it on a good-quality cutting board with plenty of surface area and grip.

Determine the desired thickness for the type of steaks you’re cutting (many people prefer a filet mignon to be slightly thicker than a sirloin steak). In general, it’s best not to cut premium cuts of meat less than an inch thick, because they’ll easily overcook before developing a nice exterior crust.

Use a sharp, long knife. If you have a butcher knife, which is typically curved, even better. (We have some recommendations on the best ones.) Some roasts might need more fat trimmed off of them, like an entire rib eye roll, which will have a fat cap that you should carefully remove. 

Once any undesired fat has been trimmed, make marks along the side of the meat to indicate where you want each cut to be. This will prevent you from ending up with one steak that’s an uneven size at the end. Slice against the grain of the meat, or through the width of the roast, not the length. 

For meat that isn’t going to be portioned into steaks, like ground beef, dividing it up per pound will make it easy to understand how many servings you’re defrosting at once.

How do you store meat in the freezer?

When you’re purchasing such a large amount of meat, even if you have a family, it’s unlikely that you’ll use it all at once — so the freezer is your friend. But to properly freeze raw meat, it’s important to minimize the protein’s exposure to air. The best way to do this is by storing it in plastic, ideally either in a ziplock plastic freezer bag (make sure to squeeze as much air as possible out of it before sealing) or in a vacuum-sealed bag. If you plan to buy meat in bulk and freeze it regularly, it might be worth investing in a vacuum sealer.

Once your meat is packaged and ready for freezing, label it with the date. This makes it easier to keep track of when an item went into the freezer and whether or not it’s still okay to eat. 

To thaw the meat, simply move it to the fridge — a low and slow defrost is the safest method. The amount of time it takes to thaw will depend on how much meat you’re thawing; an individual steak will only need a day, but a package of six of them together could need two or three days.

If you typically cook for one, freezing individually wrapped steaks or half-ounce portions of ground meat makes it easier to thaw the amount that you need. This is an easy way to leverage Costco’s affordable cuts of meat for any household, no matter how many people you have.