A fancy steak dinner may seem like an impossible feat when pinching pennies.
You may have, instead, taken to using inexpensive cuts of beef and that’s okay!
Cheapersteaksdon’t have to be flavorless or rubbery; you’re able to make them taste like restaurant-qualitycuts.

The first and most important step to making cheap meat more appetizing, therefore, is totenderizeit.
The tried-and-true method of doing this?
The length of time you should leave the salt on the meat depends on the thickness of the steak.

The rule of thumb isan hour per inch.
So if the steak is a half-inch thick, you leave the salt on for a half-hour.
After the time is up, rinse off the salt.
First, you want to dry the meat off after running it under the tap.
If you cook it wet, you’ll essentially be steaming it and that will change the flavor.
This simply means taking note of which direction the sinewy fibers are running and cutting crosswise through them.
This breaks them up, making the meat more tender.