Beef
- Skirt and bavette: intense flavour, cook fast and hot, slice against the grain.
- Beef cheeks: pure collagen, cheap, and meltingly tender after a long smoke.
- Chuck and featherblade: a whole muscle chuck cooked like a steak or smoked like a small brisket.
- Ox heart: sliced, marinated and grilled fast, a Peruvian classic and astonishingly cheap.
Pork
- Pork shoulder: the most forgiving cut in barbecue and among the cheapest.
- Pork cheeks: the pork equivalent of beef cheeks, tender and underused.
- Spare ribs and rib tips: more flavour than baby backs for less money.
Lamb
- Lamb breast: fatty, cheap and superb slow-cooked then crisped.
- Lamb shoulder: the cut for slow-cooked, shreddable lamb.
- Merguez and lamb koftas: made from trim, spiced and grilled.
Chicken
- Thighs and drumsticks: cheaper than breast, far harder to dry out, and better over fire.
- Whole chickens: always better value than pre-portioned, and you keep the carcass for stock.
- Wings: cheap, brilliant, and endlessly variable.
Ask your butcher
The cheapest, best cuts are often not on supermarket shelves at all. A butcher will sell you cheeks, breast, featherblade and offal cheaply, and cut them how you want. It is the single best move for eating well on a budget.
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