The Affordable Filet Mignon Alternative You Should Start Grilling

The next star of your barbecue may be a steak you've never seen — the petite tender, aka the teres major. The cut is best cooked over high heat, making it the perfect contender for the grill's hot and direct flames. When sliced into medallions, it's pretty much indistinguishable from a filet mignon and just as lean and tender — but at a much lower price point. It's roughly half the price of filet mignon, averaging at $11 for 10 ounces as of July 2024, making it a premium budget option that won't hurt your wallet (per USDA).

This cut comes from the cow's shoulder section, the chuck, loved for its beefy, robust flavor. The shoulder is a heavily used muscle and yields a tougher cut of meat. However, the petite tender falls on the interior and is more delicate. The muscle runs from the outer shoulder blade to the armpit and helps extend and rotate the cow's front leg. Because of its location, the small muscle receives a lot of blood flow from the animal's movement while simultaneously remaining somewhat isolated and with less connective tissue. The result is a tender meat with maximum flavor.

This steak is hard to find because of the skill required to cut the section properly and keep everything intact. It's easy to, well, butcher the meat, figuratively speaking, so it often ends up being ground for burgers or turned into stew meat. If you're lucky to find one, get that grill fired up.

The petite tender's smaller size and uniform shape make it easy to work with on the grill and ensure an even cook-through. It looks just like a tenderloin (from which the filet mignon is cut) but is closer in size and proportion to a pork tenderloin. Weighing no more than 10 to 12 ounces, it's the right amount of steak for two people to enjoy.

When grilling a petite tender, you don't want to go past medium doneness. On a coal grill, it will take about 14 to 18 minutes to reach medium-rare, and about a minute or so more for gas. You could also opt to reverse sear the steak to help attain a crispy crust. Just keep it over indirect heat and then move it above the flame for the last five minutes of grilling. Let the meat rest to ensure the juices redistribute.

When it comes to what to pair petit tender with, it will go well with a variety of flavor profiles and sauces — just about anything you would use for a filet or any grilled steak. Try spooning chimichurri sauce over the steak or topping it with a simple homemade aioli. If you have any leftovers, turn them into a sandwich or tacos, but odds are you will gobble it up straight off the grill.

Some chefs think that the filet mignon is the worst cut of steak to grill. When you factor in its price tag and delicate nature, opting for other cuts that are better suited for hot grill grates is a no-brainer. While the petite tender was made for the grill, with the flavor of a ribeye and the mouthfeel of a filet, it's not always readily available. If you can't find it, there are several other suitable options that don't break the bank.

Flat iron steak is a very tender cut with a lot of flavor at a reasonable price. Its marbling allows it to withstand the grill's hot flames without drying out while imparting flavor to the meat as the fat renders. Flank and skirt steaks are also classics for the grill that land lower on the sticker price spectrum, with skirt just a touch more than flank at $12 and $10 respectively (per the USDA).

Strip steak will cost a bit more than those at $13, but it has an outer layer of fat that imparts a robust flavor to the meat and is easy to portion out into smaller steaks — making it fit for barbecue crowds. Another cut from the shoulder of the cow, the chuck eye, grills similarly to the more expensive ribeye but is the least expensive of the lot at $6.