Costco Beef Guide – Everything You Need to Know (2024)

Costco is the retailer known for the highest overall quality of meat & seafood. Their beef options are exceptional, and their prices are fantastic. They are the world’s largest retailer of USDA Choice and USDA Prime Steaks for a reason!

This Costco Beef Guide will cover everything you need to know about their beef, including:

• USDA Grades
• Top Cuts
• All Beef Prices
• Picking the Best Costco Beef
• Storing and Freezing Beef
• Costco Business Center Beef Options
• Halal Beef Options
• Mechanically Tenderized Beef

There are 8 grades in total, with Prime being the highest, then Choice, and then select. After Select, there is Standard and Commercial grade.

And finally, the last 3 grades are utility, cutter, and canning.

Grocery stores will not have these last 3 grades available, and instead, this type of meat can be found in products such as jerky or hot dogs.

The only type of beef that Costco sells will be either USDA Choice or USDA Prime-graded beef.

Beef is graded on its tenderness, juiciness, and flavor. As consumers, we can see the grades through the amount of marbling the steak has.

Prime-graded beef will always have the most marbling and produce the most tender and juicy eating experiences. Many hotels, steakhouses, and restaurants will purchase and serve Prime quality beef.

USDA Choice is a step below Prime but will still produce a delicious and juicy meal. The meat will still be very tender, which makes it an excellent option for everyday meals. The majority of Costco beef will be Choice grade.

There still may be a good amount of marbling in USDA Choice beef, and overall will be a high-quality beef.

With a good eye, you can pick out cuts that barely miss the USDA Prime designation, securing “high choice” or near-prime beef for the lower price of Choice graded beef.

Pro Tip:At Costco, beef in a white tray carton will usually be USDA Choice beef, and beef in the blue carton will usually be Prime grade.

Prime Grade Beef does appear in the white carton every once in a while.

TheRibeyeis an all-American steakhouse classic and a favorite of backyard grillmasters and deserves our first mention in our Costco beef guide.

The ribeye comes from the beef rib primal cut and is known for its distinctive beef flavor that comes from its high degree of marbling.

The best way to cook the rib eye is with high heat, either on a cast iron skillet or on the grill.

While rare, you may be able to find the ribeye cap at Costco! The cap is the most tender piece of the rib roast and is often priced the same as the ribeye.

The ribeye cap may change the way you think about steak.

Pro Tip:Ask the butchers if they can cut you the ribeye cap. You will not regret it.

Regarded as the most tender cut of beef and one of the most expensive, the beef tenderloin lives up to its name.

The tenderloin comes from the psoas major muscle, which is not often used in cows and results in a very tender piece of meat.

A major difference between the tenderloin and some of the other high-end cuts of meat is its lack of marbling. The tenderloin is very lean but still full of flavor and will absolutely melt in your mouth.

Also does great at soaking up marinades!

Whole beef tenderloin can be found “unpeeled” or untrimmed in the beef section but often will need to be requested from the butcher.

The price savings for an unpeeled portion can be 30% or more but will require some at-home butchering.

If you want a tenderloin piece that is already processed and ready to be cooked, Costco sells “Peeled Extreme” Tenderloin.

This is a piece of tenderloin that has the fat, connective tissue, and silver skin already removed. All you have to do is take the meat home and cook a delicious meal.

Filet Mignon is a steak cut from the ever so tender beef tenderloin. Filet mignon is often regarded as some of the most tender and desirable cuts of beef.

Costco sells their USDA Prime filet mignon for $20.99 per pound.

Because it’s directly cut from the tenderloin, filet mignon will share the same characteristics of being lean with little marbling but extra tender and flavorful.

Costco’s Filet Mignon steaks are typically one and a half to two inches thick, but because the filet mignon doesn’t include much intramuscular fat, it is imperative to not overcook the beef as it could cause it to dry out.

Filet Mignon is best served medium rare.

For such a prized cut of beef, Filet Mignon is pretty versatile in how it can be cooked.

The end goal is always medium rare, which can be achieved with a grill, in an oven, in a skillet, and definitely, in a sous vide bath.

If you can keep the internal temperatures in check, your filet mignon will turn out beautifully.

The nature of the meat makes it ideal for braising and is primarily used for pot roasts. When cooked low and slow, a chuck roast will be fork tender, melt in your mouth, and be extremely delicious.

A chuck roast isn’t going to be the type of cut that you are going to want to grill and instead is best in the crockpot, instant pot, or oven.

I recommend the chuck rolls sold at Costco Business Centers if you are up for an adventure.You will have to break down the meat yourself, but you will end up with various cuts, including chuck roasts, chuck eye steaks ( aka the poor man’s ribeye), boneless ribs, and Denver steaks. Chuck rolls at the Costco Business Center sell for about $4.50 a pound.

Check out this video on how tobreak down a chuck roll

Sirloin is probably one of the more well-known steak names, but what exactly is the Sirloin? The Sirloin refers to a subprimal cut near the rear of the cow.

The Sirloin is usually broken down into two cuts, the Top Sirloin and the Bottom Sirloin.

Top Sirloin is typically regarded as the higher quality cut of Sirloin. Top Sirloin doesn’t have much marbling but is still incredibly tender. They make for great grilling steaks.

Top Sirloin can be sold with the “Cap” On or Off. With beef, the cap refers to a large thick piece of fat that resides on top of the steak. Costco sells both the Cap Off steaks as well as the Cap On Roast (Picanha).

Picanha is a cut that has gained significant popularity in recent years and is known for being the most prized cut in Brazilian steakhouses. Costco sells Picanha, which is a Top Sirloin Roast with Cap On.

Picanha is easy to cook and provides a ton of flavor while reasonably priced. Costco sells their Picanha for $6.99 a pound.

Picanha is usually served as steaks and can be cut before or after cooking.

Brazilian steakhouses cut, skewer, and grill the picanha for maximum flavor, but there are many different ways to cook picanha or cap on top Sirloin. Picanha can be grilled, smoked, sous vide, oven-baked, and even pan-seared.

TheTri-Tip, a classic California steak, is available at Costco for $7.49 a pound for Choice grade and $10.99 a pound for Prime. Tri-Tip Steak is a triangular cut of beef that comes from the sirloin region of the cow.

Costco’s tri-tip has a rich, meaty flavor and is extremely tender if cooked properly.

Tri-Tips can take on a lot of seasoning and can be cooked in multiple ways, including grilling, smoking, baking or roasting. For me, there’s just something about grilling tri-tips that screams summertime. It’s a great piece of steak to grill, serve, and slice for backyard BBQs.

Pro Tip: Always make sure to be slicingagainst the grainwith Tri-Tip. It can be tricky.

Short Ribs are an extremely flavorful cut of beef and one of my favorites from Costco. They have a ton of meat on them and can either be served English Cut or Flanken.

English-cut short ribs are fantastic when braised, creating a very tender and juicy piece of meat.

Flanken Cut short ribs are cut against the bone and usually cut to about a 1/2 inch thick. Each piece will usually have 3 or 4 pieces of bone surrounded by tender short-rib meat.

Flanken short ribs are best used to make Korean BBQ Galbi.

Flanken Cut Short Ribs marinate and absorb flavors very well, and are best when cooked with high heat.

Here is an excellent DIY marinade to make your ownKorean Galbi.

Most people think of Costco Beef Back Ribs when they think of traditional ribs. The beef ribs look very similar to pork ribs, except they are a little larger in size.

Beef back ribs are located near where prime rib and ribeye are cut from, both positive and negative.

The positive is that the beef ribs can be super tender if appropriately cooked but also lacking in meat because the other more expensive cuts will be prioritized.

At just $4.29 per pound at Costco, beef ribs offer exceptional taste and flavor at a very fair price.

The Prime grade brisket is sold whole and comes in 10-15 pound packages. The average purchase price for a brisket runs about $40-$60, depending on size.

I don’t have the biggest smoker, so I like to pick up the smallest USDA Prime Costco brisket in the $40 range.

A whole brisket consists of the flat and the point portion. The flat is the learner portion of the brisket, while the point is considerably fattier. Costco primarily sells the whole prime packer style briskets but will every now and then sell flat cuts as well.

By being sold whole, the prime beef brisket from Costco is usually considerably cheaper than grocery store’s Choice grade brisket.

Briskets are the quintessential barbecuing food due to their large amount of connective tissues that break down into tender and delicious bites when cooked low and slow.

Briskets can take up to 15 hours to cook when slow-smoked at 225°-250°F, but they are oh-so worth it.

Without a doubt, one of the most impressive-looking steaks that Costco carries is theTomahawk steak.

Due to its intense marbling and long bone handle, the Tomahawk steak is a fun and unique cut.

While they aren’t offered regularly, when Costco does sell them, they do sell out quickly.

Very likely, if you see tomahawk steaks on one Costco trip, you won’t see them on the next one.

Tomahawk Steaks are best served medium rare and can be cooked in various ways. For a big steak like this, I used a sous vide at 137° to get a perfectly pink interior.

The steak can also be cooked on a grill, on a cast iron skillet, or even in an oven.

A tomahawk steak is essentially a huge bone-in ribeye, but for such a fancy cut, Costco’s price is more than reasonable at $14.99/pound for Prime grade Tomahawk steak.

Just one thing to remember is that you are paying for the bone. If the presentation isn’t essential, go with Costco’s ribeye for the same price per pound.

Costco occasionally sells Wagyu beef in the meat and seafood department, but lately, I’ve only seen frozen wagyu beef at Costco.

The Costco Grade A5 Wagyu Beef New York Strip is imported from Japan, costs $99.99/lb, and is grain fed with no added hormones. A Grade of A5 is the highest grade of Japanese wagyu.

The New York Strip Wagyu Beef package is typically sold in ~1.5-2 pound packages and will cost between $150-$200 in total. While a hefty price for a piece of steak, Wagyu beef is considered some of the best in the world.

Known for its marbling, Costco’s wagyu beef boasts abundant intramuscular fat, which packs in the flavor and keeps the meat super tender.

Wagyu beef is best cooked from rare to medium rare, and it’s imperative to not overcook the steak. Overcooking wagyu can lead to the fat melting and the flavor dissipating.

Wagyu beef takes just a few minutes on a hot skillet for each side.

Costco also offers 5 individually wrapped one-pound chubs of frozen ground beef in the frozen food aisles.

The frozen ground beef is 91% lean and 9% fat and goes for $21.99 or $4.39 per pound. This is an excellent price for lean ground beef!

At Costco, you can be confident that the quality of beef will meet a minimum standard higher than what you find at your typical grocery store.

Most grocers offer USDA Select beef, with USDA Choice being the higher-end option that they carry. Costco’s minimum grade is USDA Choice, with USDA Prime being the higher-end option.

Costco’s prices are on par or even slightly more at times, but the quality and freshness of the beef will be unmatched compared to your local grocer.

While you can’t go wrong with any steak you pick out from Costco, I have some tips for picking out the best of the best steaks.

We want to see as much milky white fat inside the meat as possible. Fat is flavor, and when cooked, the marbling will melt into the beef improving its juiciness, tenderness, and texture. We will look for as much marbling as possible for most steaks.

Note:Marbling differs from typical intramuscular meat fat that can run through the steak or that which sits outside the steak.

The second criterion used to select steak will be its color. The ideal steak will be uniform in color and have a light cherry-pink hue.

If it’s too dark of a red or brown color, we should avoid those pieces if we can.

Finally, the steak should look like it has a touch of moisture. We want to see that “just right” moisture.

We don’t want the steak to be too dry, nor do we want the steak to appear wet, sticky, or slimy.

If it looks dry, it could be an indication that the steak is dry and juiceless. If it’s too wet or slimy, it could indicate that the steak is past its freshness.

Highly unlikely you would see a steak like this at Costco, but for educational purposes, we should avoid beef with a sheen or a layer of slime.

Regardless if you are buying some steaks for dinner or a full subprimal cut, it’s typical to cook some and then freeze the rest.

To properly freeze beef, you will want to wrap it in saran wrap as tightly as possible.

This will reduce contact with air and preserve freshness. After wrapping it with saran wrap, you can store the beef in a Ziploc bag.

Be sure to remove as much air from the bag as possible, and make sure to label and date the bag.

The business center is an entirely different beast regarding the meat section at Costco. At the business center, you will find more subprimal cuts rather than individual steaks.

This is a great way to pick up cuts that you may not be totally familiar with and can allow you to explore and get to know new pieces of beef.

My first experience with a subprimal cut came from a clearance on a whole top loin.

Generally, I would just walk right on past the larger cuts without a second glance, thinking I didn’t have the knowledge, nor could I possibly utilize that much meat.

This time, instead of having the whole top loin in the back with the rest of the meat, they had it all at the entrance to the business center. This was out of place, and it really drew my attention.

The packaging said Whole New York on it, and with a little in-store research, I realized this was a significant discount on New York Strip Steaks. All I had to do with this beef piece was slice it into steak portions.

I picked up a USDA choice top loin whole for $4.97/lb, which was about half off then. Definitely, a great beginner introduction to subprimal cuts as I simply had to slice the piece into 1.5” steaks.

I ended up with 13 New York steaks for about $4 apiece.

Halal is the Arabic word for “permissible” and refers to specific guidelines to be followed when slaughtering an animal.

These guidelines are strict and pertain to the ethical treatment of the animal as well as religious practices.

Halal meat or beef isn’t offered regularly at traditional Costco warehouses but is available at Costco Business Centers. If your regular Costco carries duck, it may be a halal duck, but other than that, most Costco’s do not have halal products.

On the other hand, Costco business centers will carry a limited amount of halal products; some halal items I have seen in the past are ground beef, a variety of beef cuts, lamb, and goat.

One of the major controversies surrounding Costco’s beef is that they blade tenderize their steaks.

This means that each piece of cut steak that Costco sells goes through a process where it is pierced with tiny blades or needles to tenderize the beef by breaking up connective tissue and muscle fibers.

It sounds great in theory and does in fact, make the meat more tender, but it does come with an alleged drawback.

Mechanically or blade-tenderized beef could lead to some dangers concerning E. Coli. The blade tenderizing process can transfer E Coli found on the meat’s surface to deep within the center of the meat.

This means to fully ensure that your piece of beef is safe to eat, you will have to cook it to an internal temperature of 160° as recommended on the Costco package.

Most people, including us here at Costco FDB, prefer beef at medium rare, which is 130°. By only cooking to medium rare, we are not fully killing any potential bacteria that could be in the meat.

But don’t let me dissuade you from purchasing beef at Costco. With an estimated 2.7 billion pounds of meat, or 10% of beef consumed in America, being mechanically tenderized, the chances of contracting E. Coli are astronomically low. Still, the warning must be put out there when it comes to Costco beef.

Typically, we understand that certain foods will always have bacteria risk, and this wouldn’t be an issue of concern to us here at CFDB, but Costco has the warning on their label. So we do think it’s fair to mention this in this guide.

I have researched E Coli outbreaks over the years, and I couldn’t find anything that was mainly traced to steaks or blade-tenderized beef.

Most of the outbreaks I found were involved lettuce or spinach; if they did involve beef, then it was ground beef. Costco does not mechanically tenderize its ground beef.

While there are reports that blade-tenderized beef can lead to E coli. It doesn’t appear to be widespread in any way.Source

If you want to play it extra safe, one alternative is to sous vide your Costco beef.

Typically when we cook steaks on the grill or in a cast iron pan, we stop the cooking process when the desired internal temperature is reached. This means that a piece of steak may only be at a specific temperature for a few minutes.

Now with a sous vide, we can keep our beef at a specific temperature for a prolonged period without compromising the meal’s deliciousness. If our desired temperature is medium rare at 130°, we can set our sous vide to cook at that temperature for 90 minutes or even longer.

We can kill bacteria at a lower temperature by keeping the cooking process going for an extended time. Take a look at the chart below, sourced fromAmazingFoodMadeEasy.com

As you can see, it only takes a few seconds to kill any bacteria at the Costco recommended 160°. It will take 86 minutes + to kill bacteria at 130° but will allow us to also get perfectly safe and perfectly cooked medium rare beef.

While there may be a risk of E coli with mechanically tenderized Costco beef, the chances of any outbreak are minimal. If still concerning, you will have options with to sous vide to safely cook your beef.