The New England Debate On What Cuts Of Beef Are Really Steak Tips

Certain foods that exist across regional boundaries have a tendency to inspire passionate, ardent debate about what constitutes the "real" version. This is definitely notable with chili, as Texans tend to be extremely adamant about the beans versus no beans question, and you certainly see it with regional styles of barbecue. Of course, it's not limited to just those issues; another area of surprising debate is steak tips, a popular dish throughout New England.

The term "steak tips" (or "beef tips") is somewhat difficult to define, but generally it refers to bite-sized pieces of steak cut down for kebabs, grilled, or cooked in an air fryer. The debate isn't what they technically are vis-à-vis how you cut or prepare them, though; it comes down to what kinds of beef really count as steak tips. The issue isn't purely a regional one either, because even New Englanders aren't uniformly agreed on what meat constitutes a steak tip.

Though there are plenty of different preparations, steak tips are often found in one form or another on New England restaurant menus. The one thing they all have in common is that they are marinated first; the idea is to give them as much flavor as you can. Unlike with a finer cut of beef, chefs are not just seasoning steak tips with salt and pepper and letting them stand completely on their own.

The most common cut of steak you'll see under the steak tip umbrella comes from the edge of a cut of sirloin. This makes sense, as sirloin strikes the balance between a cheaper cut and one that still has plenty of flavor and tenderness relative to its price point. But that's not guaranteed to be what you get; plenty of butcher shops will also sell flank steak or flap meat as steak tips. Moreover, if the steak tips in question are at a higher price point, there's a decent chance they were made with tenderloin  — which is (as the name suggests) more tender, and also quite a bit pricier. No two restaurants even within New England can seem to agree on what the right cut is for their popular regional dish.

New England isn't the only region with confusing guesses about what does or does not count as a steak tip. In California, if you show up at a butcher shop and ask for steak tips, you're likely to get a confused look and be given tri-tip, a primal sirloin cut that gets its name from the fact that it comes in a triangular shape. And tri-tip is great — particularly if you cook it right using the 2-zone method — but it's certainly not something you'll get as steak tips in the upper Northeast. Throughout the South, meanwhile, beef tips typically consist of chuck roast, usually braised in order to deal with the toughness issues inherent in cheaper cuts of meat.

It helps with steak tips to know what you're going to get in any region where you ask for them. Ultimately, they're more of a staple in New England than anywhere else, so that's probably the place to go for the most accurate definition. That is, if you can get New Englanders to agree.