Bottom round substitutes

Neighbouring muscles from the same rear leg, sold beside bottom round at almost the same price.

Best for

roast beef, pot roast, jerky, sliced sandwich beef, London broil, braciole

Practically interchangeable. Top round, or topside, is slightly more tender with a finer grain, so it slices a little more neatly and eats a touch less chewy, and sirloin tip is the most tender of the three. Nothing about the method changes: same 130 to 135 F target for a rare roast, same long braise for a pot roast. Buy whichever is cheaper.

The cut directly above bottom round, and in American markets often labeled bottom round rump roast, meaning the two overlap.

Best for

pot roast, slow-cooker beef, shredded beef, roast beef

Very close indeed, with marginally more fat and connective tissue, which makes it slightly moister and more shreddable after a long braise. In a rare-roasted dish the results are nearly identical. If your store labels things loosely, you may already be buying the same muscle under both names.

The tight cylindrical muscle that sits inside the round, and often the cheapest roast on the shelf.

Best for

thinly sliced roast beef, jerky, cold beef sandwiches, budget cooking

Leaner still, with a neat shape that slices very evenly, and correspondingly less forgiving. Roasted past medium-rare it goes dry and faintly livery. Salt it a day ahead, reverse-sear at 250 F, pull it at 130 F, and slice paper-thin. For jerky it is arguably the best cut of all because there is almost no fat to trim.

A shoulder cut loaded with collagen, and the better buy any time the beef will be cooked long and slow.

Best for

pot roast, shredded beef, stew, slow-cooker dinners, beef and gravy, barbacoa

If your bottom round was headed for a slow cooker or a Dutch oven, this is an upgrade rather than a compromise. Chuck's connective tissue melts into gelatin, so the meat goes silky and moist and the gravy thickens on its own, where lean bottom round tends to come out shreddable but dry. It will not work for a rare-roasted or deli-sliced dish, because it does not carve into clean slices.

A tough front-end cut with a strong grain, and the traditional cut for corned beef, which is a job bottom round often does too.

Best for

corned beef, pot roast, braises, sliced braised beef, sandwich beef

Richer and fattier than bottom round, so a braise made with it tastes more luxurious and produces more skimmable fat. The texture keeps a defined grain and pulls into strands rather than crumbling. For corned beef and pastrami-style recipes it is the more traditional and generally better choice, though bottom round gives a leaner slice some people prefer.

A more tender, mildly marbled roast for a modest price increase.

Best for

roast beef served rare, sliced beef for a crowd, cooks who keep overcooking lean roasts

Juicier, more tender and richer tasting, and considerably more forgiving of a few extra degrees in the oven because there is some fat to keep it moist. The reasons not to are cost and, if the recipe is a marinade-driven one, that acidic marinades penetrate lean round more deeply than they do sirloin. Do not braise it for hours; it is a roasting cut.