Beef Brisket
Beef in the Midwest · steady this week
Per a typical 140g serving, scaled from the per-100g figures in USDA FoodData Central (Beef, brisket, flat half, boneless, separable lean only, trimmed to 0" fat, select, raw).
Buying beef brisket in the Southcentral saves about 61% versus the Northeast this week.
- How to pick a good one
- A whole packer brisket has two muscles — the lean flat and the fatty point. The flat alone is cheaper and easier to slice but dries out more readily. Look for a flexible brisket that bends easily, which indicates less connective tissue, and a fat cap around a quarter-inch thick.
- What a good price looks like
- Whole packer briskets are $3.50 to $6 a pound; the trimmed flat alone costs $7 to $10 for less waste. Under $4 a pound for a whole packer is a good price. On finished weight, even cheap brisket lands around $8 a pound, which is the number to compare against other roasts.
- What you actually get
- This is the big one: a 12 lb packer brisket yields roughly 6 to 7 lb cooked, a loss of around 45% once trimmed fat and rendered fat are gone. Budget half a pound of raw brisket per person and expect the finished weight to be about half the purchase.
- How to store it
- Three to five days refrigerated. Briskets are large, so freezing in portions is often more practical than freezing whole.
- In the kitchen
- The long game. Brisket has two muscles — the lean flat and the fatty point — with a thick fat seam between them, and it needs many hours of low heat to convert its connective tissue to gelatin. It also passes through a stall around 70°C where the temperature stops rising for hours; that is normal and waiting it out is the job.
- Getting the most out of it
- Brisket is cheap per pound and unforgiving of shortcuts — it needs many hours of low, moist heat to convert its collagen. Rushed, it is one of the toughest cuts you can buy. Always slice against the grain, and remember the grain runs differently in the flat and the point.
- Instant Pot Corned BeefRecipe by Spend With Pennies~$3.10 / serving 5 in-season
- Beef Brisket TacosRecipe by The Recipe Critic$4.18 / serving 2 in-season
- Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage Recipe (Instant Pot Option)Recipe by Foodie Crush~$4.42 / serving 4 in-season
- Caramelised Vietnamese Shredded BeefRecipe by RecipeTin Eats~$5.95 / serving 3 in-season
- Texas TwinkiesRecipe by The Recipe Critic~$1.01 / serving 1 in-season
- How to Cook Corned BeefRecipe by Spend With Pennies~$2.35 / serving 3 in-season
See all 17 recipes with beef brisket →Filter by diet, time, budget, and macros.
Price from the USDA weekly retail meat report (conventional, per lb). Nutrition per typical serving, computed from USDA FoodData Central.
Beef Brisket — FAQ
What's the price of beef brisket this week?
As of the week of September 4, 2026, the price of beef brisket in the Midwest is $5.99/lb, unchanged from last week. Prices come from the USDA's weekly retail meat report.
Which region has the cheapest beef brisket right now?
The Southcentral has the cheapest beef brisket this week at $4.23/lb — about 61% less than the Northeast, where it runs $10.97/lb.
How much protein is in beef brisket?
A typical 140g serving of beef brisket has about 30.4g protein and 174 calories (5.7g fat), per USDA FoodData Central.
What can I cook with beef brisket?
SeasonSort indexes 17 recipes using beef brisket, each priced per serving from this week's data — starting from about $1.01 a serving. The cheapest are listed on this page, with a link to the full filtered list.