The Spruce Eats: What Is Beef Sirloin? Beef sirloin from the beef loin primal cut beef bottom round steak flavorful but chewy. Top sirloin steaks are best for grilling, and a tri-tip cut is good for roasting. Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks.

Of the two loin subprimals, the sirloin sits farther back toward the rear leg, where the muscles get more exercise. The meat from this section can be tougher than cuts from the front part of the loin, called the short loin. The sirloin is almost always broken down into two boneless wholesale cuts: the top sirloin butt and bottom sirloin butt. For instance, the top butt includes a triangular muscle called the biceps femoris, or sirloin cap, which usually gets pulled off and cut into steaks called cap steaks or coulotte steaks. Top sirloin steaks and top sirloin filets make economical choices for the grill that still come close in enjoyment to the more expensive short loin and rib cuts such as the New York strip and rib-eye. Like the corresponding steaks, roasts from this section offer a good balance of flavor and value.

With bottom sirloin, which sits closer to the cow’s rear legs, the muscles get tougher. Cuts from the bottom sirloin tend to be used for roasts, and it provides a lot of ground beef and stew meat, too. Probably the most popular bottom sirloin roast is the tri-tip, which is made from a coarse-grained triangular muscle called the tensor fasciae latae. Tri-tip is fairly lean, although it does have a layer of fat on the outside that can be desirable for slow cooking. If a carcass is butchered according to specifications, about three-fourths of the knuckle will end up in the round section, and the remaining quarter of it in the loin.