Beef Tendon substitute

Best substitute

Oxtail

Use the same amount by weight as the beef tendon you are replacing

Best for pho broth

Different texture

Tendon is texture and body, not flavour. It contributes almost nothing to the taste of a broth and everything to the mouthfeel: a springy, slippery, faintly sticky bite in the bowl, and a silky weight in the broth from all the collagen it melts out. So substitute for whichever of those two you actually want. Extra oxtail is the best all-round swap at 1:1 by weight, because it is rich in the same collagen and easy to buy. Beef shank with the silverskin and gristle left on, sold as gan gau, gets you closest to the actual eating texture. Honeycomb tripe gives a comparable springy chew. And if nobody at your table wants tendon, leave it out and add a little more brisket, because a bowl of pho is completely correct without it.

Other beef tendon substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Beef Shank With the Gristle Left On
Close match
Use the same amount by weight
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.
What changes
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.
3Honeycomb Tripe
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
Different part of the animal, similar job.
What changes
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.
4Beef Short Ribs
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
Plenty of collagen, so the broth gets the same rich silky body, but almost no springy texture to eat.
What changes
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.
5Pork Trotter or Pork Skin
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
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.
What changes
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.
6No Tendon: Extra Brisket Plus a Little Unflavoured Gelatin
Different texture
Use add 1 tsp unflavoured gelatin for every quart of finished broth
The honest least-bad option, and it is honest about what it cannot do.
What changes
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.

What is Beef Tendon?

Beef Tendon is Beef tendon, gan bo in Vietnamese and usually just called tendon on a pho menu, is the tough white connective tissue from a cow's leg that turns from rubbery to translucent and gelatinous after two to three hours of simmering.

Cooking tips

Tendon needs two and a half to three hours at a bare simmer, or about forty-five minutes at pressure. There is no halfway point: undercooked tendon is unpleasantly rubbery and only long cooking turns it translucent and tender.
Parboil tendon for ten minutes, dump the water and rinse the pot before the real simmer. This is standard practice for pho and it is the difference between a clear broth and a grey one.
Cook tendon separately from the broth if you are serving it sliced, then chill it firm before cutting. Warm cooked tendon is too slippery to slice thinly and it falls apart.
If your broth came out thin and watery, the missing ingredient is almost always collagen rather than salt. Adding an extra piece of oxtail or a split trotter for the last two hours fixes it in a way that more seasoning never will.
Tendon freezes very well once cooked. Simmer a whole batch, slice it, and freeze it in portions in a little of its own broth so it does not dry out.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave the tendon out of pho?

Absolutely, and plenty of people order their pho without it. Tendon is one optional topping among many and it contributes almost no flavour, so the broth still tastes right. What you lose is some of the silky body in the broth and the springy texture in the bowl. Add an extra piece of oxtail or a teaspoon of unflavoured gelatin per quart if you want that weight back.

What does beef tendon actually taste like?

Almost nothing on its own, which surprises people. Cooked properly it is mild and faintly beefy, and it mostly tastes of whatever broth it was simmered in. The reason to eat it is texture: soft, slippery and springy, somewhere between very soft gristle and firm jelly. If you were expecting a strong flavour, the substitution question is easier than you thought, because you only need to match the texture.

Is beef tendon the same as gristle?

Broadly yes, in the sense that both are connective tissue. The difference is that butchers sell tendon as a clean whole piece from the leg, while gristle is the scattered connective tissue in a cut of meat. That is exactly why beef shank works so well as a substitute: leave its gristle untrimmed and you get tendon texture for free.

Can I use gelatin instead of tendon?

For the broth, yes, and it works well. About a teaspoon of unflavoured gelatin bloomed in cold water and whisked into a quart of hot strained broth gives you the same silky, slightly lip-sticking body. For the topping, no. Gelatin cannot recreate anything you can chew, so you need extra brisket or shank in the bowl alongside it.

Where do I buy beef tendon if I want the real thing?

Any Vietnamese, Chinese or Korean grocery with a meat counter will have it, usually frozen in bags, and it is one of the cheapest things in the case. Halal and Latin butchers often stock it too. Ask a regular supermarket butcher and they may be able to save you leg tendons on request, since it is normally trimmed and discarded.

Related substitutes

More meat & protein substitutes

Beef Tendon substitute

Other beef tendon substitutes

2Beef Shank With the Gristle Left On

3Honeycomb Tripe

4Beef Short Ribs

5Pork Trotter or Pork Skin

6No Tendon: Extra Brisket Plus a Little Unflavoured Gelatin