Buying guide · Rib vs loin

Ribeye vs New York strip

Ribeye and New York strip are the same long back muscle, the longissimus, cut at two points along the spine. The ribeye comes from the rib and carries a marbled cap, the spinalis, and a seam of fat; the striploin comes from the short loin behind the ribs, where the cap has gone and the steak is a single, firmer, leaner muscle with its fat along one edge.

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Also known as: Ojo de bife vs bife de chorizo · Ribeye và thăn ngoại (striploin) · Bife ancho vs contrafilé · Entrecôte vs faux-filetLast reviewed 25 Oct 202611 sources

Where does each one come from?

Both are cut from the longissimus, the long muscle that runs along each side of the spine. The ribeye is taken from the rib primal, usually ribs six to twelve, between the chuck and the short loin; past the thirteenth rib the same muscle continues as the striploin, which runs through the short loin to the front of the hip bone.

What changes along the way is what surrounds the muscle. In the rib, the eye is wrapped by the spinalis dorsi, the thin, intensely marbled cap, with a seam of fat between the two and, at the chuck end, a third small muscle, the complexus. Towards the loin end the cap thins, and a loin-end ribeye can look almost like a striploin with a small cap. In the short loin the cap is gone: the striploin is one even cylinder with a layer of external fat along its back. At the hip end a second muscle, the gluteus medius, begins to appear, the part butchers call the vein end.

In American trade specifications the boneless ribeye roll is IMPS 112A and the bone-in rib steak IMPS 1103; the boneless strip loin is IMPS 180 and the strip steak IMPS 1180. In the Australian system they arrive as cube roll (HAM 2244) and striploin (HAM 2140). Bone-in, the ribeye becomes a rib steak, a côte de bœuf or, with the bone left long and cleaned, a tomahawk; the strip becomes a Kansas City strip, and with the tenderloin left on the other side of the vertebra, a T-bone or porterhouse.

How do they compare side by side?

The ribeye carries its fat inside the steak, in the cap and the seam; the striploin carries it outside, as a strip of 5–10 mm along one edge. The table sets out the other differences.

Ribeye vs sirloin: which name means which steak?

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand the striploin is sold as sirloin, so “ribeye vs sirloin” there is this same comparison. In the United States sirloin is a different, cheaper cut from the hip, behind the short loin, and the striploin is the New York strip; the American sirloin is described in top sirloin.

Australians also call a boneless striploin steak a porterhouse, which in the United States is a large bone-in steak with the tenderloin attached. In Australia and New Zealand the boneless ribeye is scotch fillet or cube roll, and “rib eye” often means the bone-in steak. The table lists the usual names.

Which is more tender, and why do they taste different?

Both are tender, because the longissimus does little work; neither is as soft as the tenderloin, a different muscle under the backbone. The difference is in the fat. The ribeye carries more intramuscular fat than any other steak muscle, and its cap carries the most of all; that fat softens as it cooks and bastes the steak from inside, so the ribeye eats juicier and richer. The striploin, with its fat on the outside, has a firmer bite and a cleaner beef flavour.

The ribeye is also the muscle on which carcasses are graded: the USDA reads marbling on the ribeye surface between the twelfth and thirteenth ribs, and the Japanese BMS scale reads it on the same muscle between the sixth and seventh ribs. A striploin takes the grade of its carcass, but it can show visibly less marbling than the ribeye that was scored, so the steak itself is worth looking at.

How is each one cooked?

The ribeye is usually taken off at 54–57 °C / 129–135 °F in the centre, the striploin at 50–55 °C / 122–131 °F; both are rested before slicing.

The ribeye forgives heat. Its intramuscular fat begins to soften around 50–55 °C / 122–131 °F, so a ribeye pulled at 54–57 °C eats more generously than one pulled at 50 °C, where the fat is still waxy. The cap and the eye finish at different rates, and carving the cap off and slicing it separately is a common restaurant practice.

The striploin, leaner inside, rewards less cooking. Its fat strip wants rendering: scoring it, or standing the steak on that edge in the pan for a minute, browns it and keeps the steak from curling as the strip contracts. Because the grain runs straight along the muscle, it is sliced across that grain after resting, in strips of about 1 cm.

Both take a hard sear over high heat. Steaks 3 cm or thicker suit a two-stage cook, gentle heat first and a hard sear at the end, as in the reverse sear. On an Argentine parrilla the bife ancho is cooked bone-in over embers and the bife de chorizo fat side first, both salted coarsely. Doneness targets are in Steak temperatures.

How much steak does a kilo of each give?

Across 61 boneless ribeye rolls (341 kg) broken down by the Steakpedia Field Kitchen, 81 % of the weight became steaks, about 810 g per kilo bought; across 11 boneless striploins (56 kg), 77.2 % did, about 772 g per kilo.

Counting usable trim, 83.9 % of the ribeye and 78.2 % of the striploin was eaten. Fat trimmed off was 9.4 % of the ribeye and 7.8 % of the striploin; the striploin lost more in squaring off its thin tail and its vein end, about 14 % of its weight with the silverskin. The striploin sample is much smaller, so its figure is an indication, not a standard. Both figures move with the specification: a lip-on ribeye roll with heavy fat cover gives less, a closely trimmed cube roll more. The per-kilo breakdowns are in the ribeye and striploin articles.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

11

1. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications: Fresh Beef Series 100. Washington, DC, 2014. www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/IMPS_100_Fresh_Beef%5B1%5D.pdf
2. AUS-MEAT Limited. Handbook of Australian Meat, 7th ed. (International Red Meat Manual). Brisbane, 2005. www.ausmeat.com.au
3. Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (UK). Beef Meat Purchasing Guide. Kenilworth, 2016. ahdb.org.uk
4. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. United States Standards for Grades of Carcass Beef. 2017. www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/carcass-beef-grades-and-standards
5. Japan Meat Grading Association. Beef Carcass Grading Standard. Tokyo, 1988 (rev. 2014). www.jmga.or.jp
6. Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality Evaluation (KAPE). Beef cuts and grading. www.ekape.or.kr
7. Instituto de Promoción de la Carne Vacuna Argentina (IPCVA). Cortes de carne vacuna argentina — nomenclatura y usos. Buenos Aires. www.ipcva.com.ar
8. Brasil, Ministério da Agricultura, SIPA. Portaria nº 5, de 8 de novembro de 1988 — Padronização de cortes de carne bovina.
9. Larousse Gastronomique, rev. ed. London: Hamlyn, 2009.
10. McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, rev. ed. New York: Scribner, 2004.
11. Steakpedia Field Kitchen. Butchery records, July–October 2026: 279 sheets, 1,604.6 kg of meat processed, weighed piece by piece on a calibrated scale and logged per cut. Open data, CC BY 4.0. steakpedia.com/field-data