Budget Grilling: Chuck Eye Steaks

FTC Standard Disclosure: This post is sponsored by the Certified Angus Beef® Brand in conjunction with a social media campaign through Sunday Supper LLC.  All opinions are my own.

Chuck eye steaks are easy on the wallet and fantastic on the grill.

We learned a bit about chuck eye steaks when we attended the Chef Summit at the Certified Angus Beef® Brand's Culinary Center.  The main part of the chuck eye steak is a muscle called the longissimus dorsi.  That probably doesn't sound familiar unless you're a meat geek like me.  But the longissimus is the muscle that puts the "eye" in ribeye steak.  

As the name implies blatantly screams, the chuck eye comes from the chuck primal and is immediately next to the ribeye at the 5th and 6th rib bones.  Sharing the same muscle groups and coming from the "same neighborhood," it shouldn't be surprising that the chuck eye steaks have similar marbling, taste, and texture as a ribeye steak.  

What the chuck eye steak doesn't share with ribeye steaks is the price tag.  I bought these Certified Angus Beef® Brand chuck eye steaks at our Food City in Knoxville and they were $2 less per pound than the ribeye steaks.

I seasoned them with Obie-Cue's Steakmaker Seasoning and let them rest for an hour to dry-brine.  It is your basic steak seasoning profile with the usual suspects - salt, pepper, garlic, and onion but it has a moderately strong Worcestershire flavor to it.  You could also use the Classic Steak Rub from this chuck eye steak recipe.

Next, I grilled them over high heat for 4 minutes per side. As you can see, the eyes aren't as defined
in a ribeye and there is a little more connective tissue.  

Of course, I gave them a quarter turn on each side to get diamonds.

When the steaks came off, I hit them with Albukirky's Green Chile Rub for another layer of flavor.

For a garnish, I filled a jalapeno "canoe" with red pepper jelly sauce and grilled that for a few minutes to cook the jalapeno.  I cut that up next to the steak, that mixed with the steak juices and I would drag my bites through it, bathing them in that deliciousness.

The eye portion of the steak was like the eye of a ribeye, although it did have slightly more "chew" to it than ribeye.

This was a piece of spinalis dorsi, aka, the cap steak.  It tasted and chewed exactly like the outer rim of a ribeye. 

Here is another idea for a delicious recipe featuring the chuck eye steak from our friends at Certified Angus Beef® Brand.

Herb-Rubbed Chuck Eye Steak