How To Get Cheaper Ground Beef At Costco

As inflation has continued to affect grocery prices across the board, consumers are looking for ways to slash their food spending. Warehouse giant Costco is beloved for its buy-in-bulk deals on everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water and freezer favorites. Since meat is typically one of the most expensive items on a grocery bill, finding ways to save money on it is crucial.

Plus, having plenty of ground beef on hand is a quick and easy way to whip up hearty, family-friendly meals, including tacos, spaghetti, hamburgers, and more. The Costco meat counter already sells plenty of packs of ground beef, typically at a cheaper price point than local grocery store chains. However, it's simple to save even more money on ground beef at Costco by using this trick: Simply ask the butcher for a 10-pound "chub" of ground beef. A chub of ground beef is leaner than Costco's other offerings, as fat trimmings are added to make fattier blends, such as 80/20 and 85/15. 

Costco's beef chubs — only available by special request — are usually 92-95% lean ground beef, making them ideally suited for chili, spaghetti sauces, and sloppy joes. While prices vary from store to store, employees claim that the cost of these 10-pound chubs is generally about 15% cheaper per pound than Costco's other ground beef offerings.

Once you've got that budget-friendly beef home, the question remains — what to do with it? Unless you're cooking a huge pot of chili to freeze for later, it's going to be tough to cook all that meat at once, so it's important to know how to store ground beef properly. Thankfully, ground beef freezes beautifully, making it easy to keep this money-saving marvel on hand for future meals. Most people will probably opt for one or two-pound portion sizes, but an advantage of buying meat in bulk is that you can package it however you want.

Once you've decided on the perfect portion, simply add to a zip-top bag, gently flatten with a rolling pin, and seal. Be sure to label the bag with the type of meat, weight, and date frozen; freezing flat in zip-top bags gives more flexibility to store either vertically or horizontally, and this shape unthaws quickly.

Ground beef isn't the only meat that is cheaper bought in bulk. Love filet mignon, but hate the high price tag? Try purchasing a whole beef tenderloin and cutting it into individual steaks. Not only will you trim costs by saving the butcher extra labor, but you can also slice the steaks as thin or thick as you want. Whole chickens, pork shoulders, and briskets also offer significant savings over buying individual cuts.