The Leanest and Fattiest Beef Cuts for the Best Steak

Rich, tender steak such as filet mignon, New York strip, or prime rib is an indulgent special-occasion dinner. That's because fatty cuts of beef are generally more flavorful, but that fat comes with more calories and saturated fat per pound. Therefore, some dieters might search for leaner steaks with great beef flavor but less calories and fat.

Thankfully, learning the different cuts of beef provides a helpful shorthand for how fatty or lean a particular piece of meat may be relative to other parts of the animal. Those minding their calories or fat intake can use this list to find a cut of steak that fits their dietary needs.

We share detailed nutritional information and preparation ideas for the most common cuts of beef below. But let’s spare the suspense: the leanest cut of beef, eye of round, is great for grilling or roasting. But there are plenty of other cuts for different occasions. And if you're interested in more healthy eating options, check out the healthiest protein bars, oatmeals, and sushi rolls.

Related: The Best Pellet Grills of 2024 Will Bring You to Flavortown

Leanest Cuts of Beef at a Glance

1. Eye of Round

2. Top Sirloin

3. Top Round

4. Bottom Round

5. Flank Steak

6. Tri-Tip/Bottom Sirloin

7. Beef Loin/Strip

8. T-Bone

9. Tenderloin (Filet Mignon)

10. Porterhouse

Cuts are ranked by total fat grams per 100g serving. Nutritional info is for raw, trimmed meat with intramuscular fat removed.

Fattiest Cuts of Beef at a Glance

1. Brisket

2. Skirt Steak

3. Short Ribs

4. 90/10 Ground Beef

5. Ribeye/Prime Rib/Tomahawk

Cuts are ranked by total fat grams per 100g serving. Nutritional info is for raw, trimmed meat with intramuscular fat removed.

Leanest Cuts of Beef

1. Eye of Round

The ultra-lean eye of round cut is sometimes called a “false tenderloin.” Although it comes from the hindquarter, it's a lightly used interior muscle shaped like the tenderloin that’s low in fat, albeit not nearly as tender.

While sections can be cooked as steaks, the lack of fat may result in a dry piece of meat. So, it’s often prepared whole as a roast instead. Mike Saperstein, a chef and co-owner of Sunshine Provisions, says some chefs will use fattier Wagyu or Prime eyes of round to cure for carpaccio or serve raw as beef tartare.

Preparation: Grilling, Roasting, Beef Tartare

Calories: 124

Fat: 3g

Saturated Fat: 1g

Protein: 22.6g

2. Top Sirloin

Top sirloin is an affordable, lean steak cut with a strong beef flavor and thick profile. Omaha Steaks’ website calls the top sirloin steak a “weeknight steak”, nodding to its price tag and low fat content.

Saperstein notes that there are two sub cuts within the top sirloin: the culotte, or cap, and the heart. The heart often comes with a “baseball cut” to resemble filet mignon at a lower price. All top sirloin benefits from quick preparation to avoid dry, overcooked meat.

Preparation: Grilling/Searing

Calories: 131

Fat: 4.1g

Saturated Fat: 1.5g

Protein: 22.1g

3. Top Round

Top round, or inside round, is the go-to cut for roast beef, roasted in the oven and thinly sliced for sandwiches or thicker for plated meals. This large subprimal cut from the hindquarter is also sometimes used in premium hamburger blends.

Preparation: Roasting, Burgers

Calories: 135

Fat: 4.1g

Saturated Fat: 1.4g

Protein: 22.9g

4. Bottom Round

Here's another hardworking hindquarter subprimal that’s too tough and lean to make good steaks but provides an affordable, general-purpose lean beef option. Bottom round is often ground for burgers or slow-cooked for flavor-rich shredded beef.

Preparation: Slow Cooking, Burgers

Calories: 128

Fat: 4.3g

Saturated Fat: 1.5g

Protein: 22.2g

5. Flank Steak

Like many of the leaner cuts of beef, flank steak is cheaper than the high-end steak cuts such as ribeye but responds well to a variety of cooking methods. Grill it, braise it, whatever suits you.

Saperstein says flank steak gets used in everything from tacos to Mongolian beef and responds well to a tenderizing marinade.

Preparation: Grilling, Stir-Fry

Calories: 141

Fat: 5.5g

Saturated Fat: 2.1g

Protein: 21.6g

6. Bottom Sirloin/Tri-Tip

Tri-tip is a cut taken from the larger bottom sirloin subprimal. But its popularity in California has made it at least as common as bottom sirloin, and certainly more so than the other sub-cut from the bottom sirloin, the Bavette steak.

All of the bottom sirloin cuts have a similar taste, texture, and nutritional profile akin to a flank steak. Outdoor cooks love to smoke or sear these cuts to slice for fajitas or just enjoy on their own.

Preparation: Grilling, Smoking, Roasting

Calories: 142

Fat: 5.6g

Saturated Fat: 1.7g

Protein: 21.3g

7. Loin/Strip/New York Strip

Saperstein says the New York strip steak is the third most popular cut in the restaurant business, prized for its tenderness and flavor profile. Large porterhouse and T-bone steaks are multi-muscle cuts that include the New York strip.

This premium steak cut has many aliases, including strip loin and Kansas City strip. Hunters call this prized muscle on a deer a “backstrap.” Whatever you call it, it’s almost always seared and served as a steak, though whole-muscle versions can be roasted and sliced.

Preparation: Grilling, Pan-Searing

Calories: 143

Fat: 5.7g

Saturated Fat: 2.3g

Protein: 23.1g

8. T-Bone

As mentioned above, the T-bone actually includes both the New York strip (short loin) and the tenderloin (filet mignon) with a small T-shaped bone between. Both sections of a T-bone are less fatty than a ribeye, making them a good compromise for folks wanting a premium steak without cranking up the fat content.

Preparation: Grilling, Pan-Searing

Calories: 143

Fat: 5.7g

Saturated Fat: 2.3g

Protein: 23.1g

9. Tenderloin (Filet Mignon)

When isolated from the strip loin and trimmed, steaks from the tenderloin are often called filet mignon. It's widely considered the most tender cut of beef. The whole tenderloin can be cooked as a whole roast and sliced. When it’s coated in pate and wrapped in puff pastry, it's known as Beef Wellington.

Preparation: Grilling, Pan-Searing, Roasting

Calories: 143

Fat: 6.5g

Saturated Fat: 2.4g

Protein: 22.1g

10. Porterhouse

A highly similar premium steak cut to the T-bone, the porterhouse includes a thicker section of tenderloin and is taken from further back on the cow. Not surprisingly, the fat content is also very similar to T-bones and tenderloins—though porterhouses are slightly fattier in general.

Saperstein says this is a harder steak for novices to cook well, so it’s a popular restaurant order cooked over an open flame or under a broiler.

Preparation: Grilling, Broiling

Calories: 155

Fat: 6.6g

Saturated Fat: 2.6g

Protein: 22.3g

Related: Best Cheap Whiskey of 2024 for a Great Bottle on a Budget

Fattiest Cuts of Beef

1. Brisket

Low and slow preparations are perfect for this thick, sinewy pectoral muscle which is too tough for sliced steak. Whether it’s smoked for Texas barbecue or cured and boiled for corned beef, brisket has moderate fat content when well-trimmed, but tons of flavor thanks to the breakdown of connective tissue.

Preparation: Smoking, Slow Cooking, Corned Beef

Calories: 157

Fat: 7.4g

Saturated Fat: 2.6g

Protein: 20.7g

2. Skirt Steak

Once a forgotten butcher’s cut, skirt steak is now the most expensive cut of beef due to its small size relative to the animal, according to Saperstein. Like the much cheaper flank steak, this versatile cut can be marinated and grilled as a steak, cubed for skewers, or cut up for tacos.

Preparation: Grilling, Pan-Searing

Calories: 164

Fat: 8.8 g

Saturated Fat: 3.2 g

Protein: 21.2 g

3. Short Ribs

Short ribs are a rich blend of fat and tough meat that respond best to slow cooking methods, such as braising in a Dutch oven or low and slow barbecuing. Though much of the fat may render out in these cooking methods, braised short ribs often incorporate that fat into the sauce served with the meat.

Preparation: Braising, Smoking

Calories: 169

Fat: 10g

Saturated Fat: 4.3g

Protein: 19.7g

4. 90/10 Ground Beef

Ground beef is raw material for a wide range of dishes, from burgers to tacos to goulash to chili. It comes in a range of fat content blends, with 90 percent lean and 10 percent fat being one of the more common, though it can be found as low as 96 percent lean and as fatty as 70 percent.

Technically, any beef cuts can be ground for ground beef, but chuck, sirloin, and round are commonly used. One nice feature of ground beef is that the fat ratios are clearly stated on the labeling.

Preparation: Sautéing, Burgers, Baking

Calories: 176

Fat: 10g

Saturated Fat: 3.9g

Protein: 20g

5. Ribeye

One of the most popular steaks, ribeye is a heavily marbled cut that also has plenty of fat between the muscles. Cooked whole and sliced, it’s called prime rib. The same cut is often sliced thin for high-quality Philly cheesesteaks. The rich marbling and fat pockets make it forgiving to cook at the expense of high fat and calorie content.

Preparation: Grilling, Roasting, Pan-Searing, Broiling

Calories: 176

Fat: 10.6g

Saturated Fat: 4.1g

Protein: 19.7g

How We Ranked the Leanest and Fattiest Cuts of Beef

We ranked the leanest cuts of beef based on 100-gram servings, because that's the size used by the USDA in their FoodData Central nutritional information database. We standardized this by trimming excess fat and excluding intramuscular fat. This allowed us to compare apples to apples, easily juxtaposing vastly different steaks like ribeye and top sirloin.

The 100g portion size is also close to the 3oz portion sizes used for beef by the USDA and the American Heart Association. These serving sizes are largely wishful thinking, since steaks such as ribeyes are usually sold and served as at least 8oz cuts (and frequently larger, up to 20 ounces). Even pricier petite medallion-type steaks, such as filet mignon, are usually at least 6 to 8oz.

If you eat large servings of beef, you can scale the portion sizes to get more accurate macros by using online nutrition databases such as MyFoodData.com, which contains the USDA beef entries but has a more user-friendly interface.

For common preparations, we consulted Mike Saperstein, a chef and co-owner of Sunshine Provisions, a South Florida-based meat wholesaler for high-end restaurants that also offers home delivery of meat and seafood for consumers through their website.

Related: How to Grill a Steak, According to Chef Curtis Stone

How to Choose the Right Cut of Beef

Accurate nutritional information for fresh beef can be tough to come by, since it varies depending on the cooking method, how the meat was cut and trimmed, the grade of beef, and the production methods. Unlike packaged, mass-produced products such as cereals and canned goods, many factors conspire to influence the total calories and fat content of your unique serving of beef.

Some folks looking to gain weight may opt for fattier cuts, while calorie-cutters and low-fat dieters will want leaner meats.

“Higher fat cuts can have a place in the diet. Someone who is on a ketogenic diet, needs to gain weight, or removes fats from other parts of their meal plan can eat these cuts as well,” says Lacy Puttuck, LD, RDN, and the director of sports nutrition at the Dominate Your Game Performance Facility in Las Vegas. “Many people prefer the taste and texture [of fatty cuts] but should be aware of the higher fat content.”

Therefore, use moderation on fatty cuts. “The type of fat they contain is not conducive to cardiovascular health,” says Alan Aragon, nutrition researcher and author of Flexible Dieting. “Saturated fat within beef can adversely alter blood lipid profile (i.e., increasing LDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein-B).”

Here are some of the factors that may affect the fat content of a piece of beef, as well ways to better gauge individual cuts of beef to find one that serves your tastes buds, cooking style, and dietary needs.

Intramuscular Fat vs. Intermuscular Fat

You don’t need to be a biologist or professional butcher to understand the difference between intra- and intermuscular fat when it comes to beef. Intermuscular fat is the obvious, contiguous pieces of fat that most people cut away from their steaks. Because most of this type of fat isn’t consumed in standard cooking preparations, our rankings of the leanest cuts of beef exclude it.

Intramuscular fat is the marbling or flecks of white within an individual muscle that have a much greater impact on the richness and taste of a steak. That's why more heavily marbled breeds and grades of beef such as Wagyu and USDA Prime are preferred over others by chefs, though fat-conscious eaters may want to steer clear.

Butchering and Trimming

If you’re buying meat from a grocery store or butcher that cuts their beef in-house, you have more flexibility in how a particular cut is prepared, from the thickness of steaks to the amount of fat left on them.

While you can always cut away intermuscular fat after cooking, dieters especially concerned with fat content can ask for meat to be trimmed as lean as possible for a given cut. Keep in mind that no matter how well a piece of beef is trimmed, it will only be lean if it is also low in intramuscular fat or marbling.

Meat Grades and Ratings

There are a variety of rating scales and labels that also give clues as to the fat content of a piece of beef. Some of the ratings are directly correlated to fattiness, while others may offer some indication on fattiness but incorporate other factors.

Lean vs. Extra-Lean

The USDA regulates the use of the labels “lean” and “extra-lean” which may appear on individual packages of beef. “Lean” indicates less than 10 grams of fat and 4.5 grams or less of saturated fat (per 100 grams), while “extra-lean” means less than 5 grams of fat and less than 2 grams of saturated fat. The “lean” designation isn’t particularly helpful as nearly all steak cuts meet this standard.

Select, Choice, and Prime

Another ratings scale for fresh beef includes the familiar “Select,” “Choice,” and “Prime” labels, which is a voluntary rating system available through USDA inspection that producers can place on their packaging. Rather than an indication of meat quality, these grades are an indication of fat content with Prime being the fattiest designation and Select being the lowest in fat.

Jon Urbana’s KOW Steaks first brought highly-marbled Wagyu beef to the United States, and he says the Select, Choice, andPrime designations are only taken from one point on the carcass and don’t take into account breed or regional variations, though they provide one more data point for gauging fattiness.

BMS and International Standards

Urbana prefers using the beef marbling score (BMS) ratings used in North America, which provide a better indication of the intramuscular fat content of a piece of beef, but unfortunately aren’t readily available to consumers in most grocery stores or butcher shops.

The scale visually judges marbling on a scale from one to 12, with 12 being the highest (and fattiest) rating. Australian and Japanese scales run one to five, with five being the highest-quality and fattiest. You may have seen Japanese “A5” Wagyu beef touted on steakhouse menus with the “A” describing yield and the “5” reflecting an overall quality score that includes the level of marbling.

If you’re looking for leaner beef, steer clear of higher scores on these scales. Nutrition aside, not everyone enjoys the ultra-rich, heavily marbled steaks at the extreme end of these ratings. For his part, Urbana says KOW aims for an eight or nine on the BMS scale for their American Wagyu.

A keen eye can compare the marbling of two cuts of beef thanks to the high contrast between red meat and white flecks of intermuscular fat, but this isn’t a highly accurate way for dieters to get calories or macronutrient numbers. The various standards and ratings provide additional clues, but knowing the cut of beef is still one of the best indicators of how fatty it is.

“Without knowing the cut of beef you're eating, there really isn't a reliable way to judge it for leanness or fattiness, aside from just visually assessing that it has minimal marbling throughout,” says Aragon. “It's tough to visually judge between a very lean, lean, or medium-fat meat.”

Preparation Considerations

A great steakhouse can be counted on to make your favorite steak taste better, but they also often add fat by basting meats in butter or oil. If you’re trying to minimize the fat content of a beef meal, avoid adding fats to the cooking process and opt for dry cooking methods such as grilling, smoking, or baking. If you prefer pan-frying, consider frying with small amounts of heart-healthy oils such as olive oil.

Mayo Clinic recommends draining fatty beef such as ground beef after cooking to let any rendered fat run off. If you’ve cooked beef in a slow cooker or braised it in a Dutch oven, you can let the cooking liquid cool enough so that the fat can harden and be strained or otherwise removed.

Why You Should Trust Us

In researching this article, I spoke with nutritionists, ranchers, chefs, and beef wholesalers to better understand the macronutrient content and variability of the different cuts of beef sold by butchers and grocery stories.

I'm also an enthusiastic home butcher and hunter who has raised livestock and broken down dozens of whole animals, including moose, pronghorn antelope, hogs, rabbits, elk, and sheep.

Related: Our 12 Favorite Protein Bars Are Healthy, Filling, and Perfect Before or After Workouts