- The best ribeye steaks come from the dollar store.
What? (dramatic music)
Now, I'm a fan of the dollar store, we all know that.
Even bought some food there,
like frozen peas or seomthing like that.
But they sell steak.
Y'all, nothing good can come from a dollar steak.
Is it really meat?
Not sure.
Where does it come from?
Not sure, but I'm about to find out all those answers.
I just have to know.
(dramatic music)
Aw yeah!
A ribeye.
All right, y'all get ready.
This is so thin.
(register beeping)
Let's get cookin'.
Inquiring minds wanna know what the heck
is a steak that you can buy for a dollar.
Well think about it.
You can get tuna steaks in a can or in a pouch for a dollar.
We eat that all day long.
At least I do.
Can we talk about the thinness here?
It is 3.5 ounces.
Listen, that's a raw weight.
Let me tell you, as a cooking professional,
I know that it is going to shrink when it is cooked.
We're talking maybe two ounces of meat here.
Hope you're not hungry.
I think the first question a lot of people have
is is it really meat, or there's no way it can be steak,
or what is it?
It says it is beef, so there you go.
They are not gonna be allowed to put this on a label
as USA beef if it does not contain beef.
I'm a little alarmed though because it says
made with USA beef.
Does that mean there is something else with it?
This contains 30% of a water-based solution.
So that's a marinade or something to give it flavor,
something to bulk it up a little bit.
So we're really talking only 70%
of this three ounces is meat.
Inspected and passed by the Department of Agriculture.
Okay, smells fine, doesn't really have an odor.
The color is quite brown, but like I said,
that's what happens when you freeze steak.
I don't know if it's usually this brown or not.
There are some little hints of red in here.
So here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm going to cook this up, gonna taste it myself,
and then I'm going to see if my fellow co-workers
will be able to tell the difference between
the dollar steak and the more expensive variety.
Now I'm gonna treat this the same way I
would a regular steak.
I'm gonna add a little salt, good bit of pepper,
add a little olive oil.
I suspect that it's probably gonna be a little bit chewy
'cause it's gonna be hard to cook this medium.
(lively wobbling)
(steak sizzling) It has an aroma.
It must be whatever the solution is.
It definitely looks better cooked than raw.
It looks like a steak, a very thin, small portion of steak.
I'm going in.
I just kinda wanna get this over with.
You can see it doesn't look terrible.
It's got some good little caramelization,
chunks of black pepper,
cuts more tender than I thought it would.
Definitely not gonna get that pink center.
Here goes nothing.
(lively music)
There's a texture thing going on that has to do with
the solution and the freezing.
It's super tender, so where I'd said it
was gonna be chewy and it has a chew factor,
but it almost disintegrates a little bit as you chew it.
So it's not stringy like a tough piece
of over cooked steak would be.
I don't know if you can see in there,
but you don't get the grains of meat,
like when you slice through a steak,
you know you can cut it against the grain,
because it's very visible how the grain runs in the meat.
It's not so visible here.
It almost looks like it's pressed together.
So maybe it went through this massive tenderizing process
where it was pressed really hard.
It's like it was formed into a patty
that looks just like a steak.
I don't think anyone is going to have a problem
telling the difference between a fresh butcher steak
and the dollar store steak.
I guess we'll go through the process any way,
but my guess is that everyone
will be able to tell the difference.
I've cooked the steak and tried to cut it very similarly.
I've tossed in some peppers and onions
to represent some fajita meat.
So time to see if anyone can tell the difference.
I think she knows.
(lively music)
(laughing)
- I think that's a dollar store steak.
- Based on smell?
- Texture.
- You would be correct.
- That one is more flavorful but it's so soft.
This one is not as flavorful, but it has good texture to it.
- 'Kay.
What if I told you one of these steaks
is from the dollar store?
(laughing)
Could you guess which one?
- This very, very tender one.
(laughing)
- Two out of two. - I think you overpaid.
(laughing)
- This kind of tastes like a gyro meat,
maybe kind of like it's been emulsified at one point
and then brought back together.
I mean, it's got a lot of flavor.
This tastes more like steak to me.
- What if I told you that one of these steaks
was from the dollar store?
(laughing)
Do you think you could pick which one?
- Would it be this one? (laughing)
- I think you're right.
That's three out of three people who can clearly tell
the difference between the dollar store steak
and a fresh steak from the grocery store.
Nobody really knocked it 100%,
so it's just the texture thing and that just
has to do with the marinating and the solution
and the possible forming it back together.
Mainly the texture; it is just
a little bit softer than traditional steak.
Would it suffice if you're on a budget
and you need some protein?
Definitely.
In the mean time, I think I'll keep
my dollar store purchases limited
to party favors and hair ties.
I'll save my steaks for the grocery store.
Nicole, why do you wear the same shirt in 50 videos?
Well, wait, we have $0 in our budget,
so we have to buy our steak from the dollar store
and I have to wear the same shirt for 20 videos
that I bought myself.