Meat lovers on the West Coast have known about the tri tip for many years but only in the last few years has it grown in popularity around the country. Tri tip was first popularized in the Santa Maria area of California but as it becomes known across the country one question I regularly see is “Where can I buy tri tip?”.
While most people on the West Coast can just go to any grocery store or butcher and pick up a tri tip there are many parts of the country where this isn’t the case. When I lived in Florida I would rarely see them at the local butcher shop or in the meat case at the grocery store. So what is a meat lover to do?
Disclosure: This post is monetized with affiliate links. If you buy something through them I earn a commission which helps support this site and lets me buy more meat so I can write about it.
Well, if you are on the West Coast count your meat blessings and head to your grocery store or Costco and stock up. But if you are in a part of the country where you can’t easily find them here are two great options:
Porter Road Tri Tip
Porter Road Tri Tip – 1.5-2 lbs for $31 – Porter Road is a butcher shop out of Tennessee that butchers and processes cattle from local ranches. Their cattle spend most of their time grazing the pastures of Kentucky and Tennessee and are then finished on vegetarian, non-GMO grain. You can definitely taste the difference between this beef and regular feedlot beef you will get at the grocery store.
I have eaten quite a few of their tri tips over the past year or two and I have always been impressed with how good they taste. Porter Road also recently won my 4 way ribeye test.
At just over $15 per pound the Porter Road tri tips aren’t much more expensive than the grocery store. I have seen tri tips on sale locally for $5 or $6 but that is rare. They are usually in the $8-10 range. Porter Road also ships free on orders over $100 and if you order more than $75 they will throw in some free ground beef, free steaks, or some other great item.
One thing about Porter Road is they only butcher a handful of cattle at a time so they don’t always have tri-tip in stock. If you visit their site in the evening chances are they will be out of stock. But they update their inventory every day around noon ET so check back and grab them while you can.
If you use code MEATLOVER at checkout you can also save $15 on your first order over $100. All in all Porter Road is a great place to buy tri tip if you can’t get it locally. Even if you can get it locally I would recommend it since the quality is much higher than normal beef.
Buy your tri tip at Porter Road and use code MEATLOVER to save $15 on orders over $100 and get free shipping as well.
Snake River Farms Tri Tip
Snake River Farms American Wagyu Tri Tip – 2.5 pounds for $79 – If you have never had the opportunity to taste American Wagyu beef these American Wagyu tri tips are a great way to experience it. I recently had one of these for the first time and the marbling was crazy for a tri tip.
If you look at these tri tip slices you can see how much fat is interwoven between the meat fibers. This was a very succulent, decadent piece of beef. It is quite a bit more expensive than most other tri tips but it is quite evident why it costs more. At over $30 a pound it isn’t a piece of meat most people will eat on a regular basis but it is an awesome choice for a special event meal like an anniversary, Father’s Day, or a birthday.
If you aren’t familiar with American Wagyu here is the quick overview: Wagyu cattle from Japan are well known for their intense marbling. Snake River Farms has bred those cattle with Angus cattle. The result is a great piece of meat that combines the great marbling of Wagyu with the beefiness and great flavor of Angus beef.
Try an American Wagyu Tri Tip from Snake River Farms today.
Crowd Cow Tri Tip
Crowd Cow Tri Tip – From $19-$72 – Crowd Cow is a marketplace that brings high quality beef from small farms across the country. They work with ranchers who are committed to producing quality beef and have very high standards for the ranches they work with.
Crowd Cow has tri tips from a number of different ranches. Some are 100% grass fed, some are American Wagyu, some are grass fed and grain finished. The prices range from $19-$72 depending on which ranch you order from. I have eaten beef from a few of their different ranches and they have all been excellent.
If you are looking for grass fed tri tip Crowd Cow is your best option. They also ship free on orders over $99 so you will probably want to add something else to your cart to qualify for the free shipping.
Buy your grass fed tri tip from Crowd Cow.
All three of these are great places to buy tri tips. Even if you can get tri tip locally I would encourage you to give them a try and see the difference in quality. But now that you have your tri tip how should you cook it? Here are a few tips:
- Season it well – You can use just salt and pepper or you can experiment with different rubs. Any good beef rub will work. Just don’t use a rub with a lot of sugar.
- Cook it on a grill, preferably over charcoal or hard wood – Like I mentioned earlier tri tips first gained popularity in Santa Maria, CA and there they cook them over an open red oak fire with an adjustable grill called a Santa Maria Grill. A charcoal grill works excellent for this as well. My personal favorite is the standard Weber Kettle but the PK Grills are ones I see used regularly as well.
- Use a 2 zone fire for a reverse sear – On the Weber Kettle I use the Slow N Sear to cook the tri tip indirect at about 225 degrees until it hits about 115 degrees internal temperature. I measure both the grill temp and the meat temperature with my Thermoworks Smoke. Once it is up to temperature load in some more hot coals and sear the heck out of it about a minute or two per side. All in all it should take 45-60 minutes to cook. You can take it to medium (130-135 degrees) but I prefer it medium rare (125 degrees).
- Cut against the grain – The tri tip is an odd shaped piece of meat that takes a bit of care to cut properly. I like cutting it at the elbow and then slicing each piece separately. If you cut with the grain you will have a very tough piece of meat but by slicing against the grain you will have a very tender piece of meat.
