Beef tendon substitutes

The best single substitute. Oxtail is loaded with the same collagen, so it thickens a broth to that faintly lip-sticking consistency in exactly the same way. The difference is that it also carries a lot of marrow and meat, so the broth comes out beefier and richer than tendon alone would make it, and what you eat is meltingly tender meat rather than springy tendon.

Best for

pho broth, beef stew and bo kho, any long braise, getting body into a thin broth

Parboil it for ten minutes and rinse the pot before starting the real simmer, the same way you would with bones for pho, or the broth turns cloudy and scummy.

Ask for shank, shin or the cut Vietnamese menus call gan gau, and do not trim the sheets of silverskin and connective tissue running through it. Simmered for three hours those layers go translucent and gelatinous, giving genuine tendon texture alongside sliceable meat. Closest thing to the real eating experience without buying tendon.

Best for

pho, sliced toppings, bo kho, when you want both meat and tendon texture

Cook it whole, chill it completely, then slice thin across the grain. Slicing it warm shreds the meat and the gelatinous layers slide off.

Different part of the animal, similar job. Long-simmered tripe has that same slippery-springy resistance and it soaks up broth well. It is a touch chewier and less yielding than tendon, and it does carry a faint offal smell that tendon does not, so it changes the character of a mild broth more than tendon would.

Best for

pho, bun bo Hue, Chinese and Mexican beef soups

Scrub it, then parboil with a slice of ginger and a splash of vinegar for fifteen minutes and rinse before it goes in the broth. This one step is the difference between good tripe and tripe nobody eats.

Plenty of collagen, so the broth gets the same rich silky body, but almost no springy texture to eat. What you get instead is fatty tender meat falling off the bone, which is a genuine pleasure and a completely different bowl. It also makes the broth noticeably fattier, so skim it well.

Best for

broth body, bo kho and stews, when tendon texture is not the goal

Chill the finished broth and lift the fat cap off the top. Short ribs render far more fat than tendon and an unskimmed broth tastes heavy rather than clean.

A cheap and very effective source of the same gelatin, and the skin itself goes soft and slippery in a way that is not far from tendon. The catch is flavour: it makes the broth read as pork rather than beef, which is fine in some soups and clearly off in pho. Best used as half of your collagen and beef bones for the other half.

Best for

broth body on a budget, mixed pork and beef soups, bun bo Hue, which already uses pork

Parboil and rinse thoroughly. Pork trotters throw a lot of scum and will make a beef broth taste muddy if you skip that step.

The honest least-bad option, and it is honest about what it cannot do. Extra brisket gives you something to eat and a teaspoon of bloomed unflavoured gelatin per quart gives the broth that silky weight tendon would have provided. What you will not get, at all, is the springy gelatinous bite in the bowl. There is no shortcut to that.

Best for

pho when tendon is unavailable or unwelcome, anyone put off by the texture, quick weeknight broth

Bloom the gelatin in a little cold water first, then whisk it into hot strained broth off the heat. Added straight to a boiling pot it clumps and never dissolves properly.