What Is Beef shin and How Can I Use It?
Here's everything worth knowing about beef shin and how to pick it, what it is, how to store it, and what to use instead, plus 6 recipes to cook tonight.
Key Points
- Beef shin is the same lower-leg cut Americans call beef shank, or Scottish hough.
- It is tough and collagen-rich, made for long, slow braising and stewing only.
- Simmer it three to four hours until it falls apart and the marrow loosens.
- The melting gelatin gives soups and stews body, even setting potted hough into jelly.
- See the beef, shank page for the full method; oxtail or chuck substitute well.
What is beef shin?
Beef shin is the lower-leg cut sold in the United States as beef shank.
In British and Australian kitchens, shin is the usual name, and Scottish cooks call it hough. One cut under three names: a tough, lean, collagen-rich muscle from the hardest-working part of the animal, usually with a round of marrow bone running through it.
That connective tissue is the reason to buy it. Cooked long and slow in liquid, it melts into gelatin that turns the meat silky and thickens the cooking liquid on its own.
How to Cook It
Treat beef shin as a braising and stewing cut and nothing else. Brown it hard, then simmer it gently in stock or wine for three to four hours until the meat falls apart and the marrow loosens from the bone.
Do not cook it quick like a steak. The muscle passes through a tough stage before the collagen dissolves, so an early pull leaves it dry and stringy.
Shin is at its best in slow dishes that want body. It carries a hearty Easy Beef Barley Soup and is the heart of the Scottish Meldrum Potted Hough, where the gelatin sets the dish into a cold jellied terrine.
More Detail and Substitutes
Beef shin and beef shank are the same cut. The full guide to choosing it, braising it, and storing it lives on the beef, shank page, and everything there applies here.
For a swap, reach for another tough, gelatin-heavy cut. Oxtail and short ribs both braise to the same melting texture, and boneless beef chuck is the easy supermarket stand-in.
Store it like any raw beef. Keep it cold and cook it within three to five days, or freeze it wrapped tight for several months.
Quick facts
- In Chinese
- 牛胫
- British (UK) term
- Beef shin
- en français
- boeuf tibia
- en español
- shin carne de res
Recipes using beef shin
There are 6 recipes that contain this ingredient.
Bay Country Crab Soup
Maryland-style crab soup simmered with beef shin, tomatoes, mixed vegetables, and a pound and a half of crab meat. A slow-cooked Chesapeake Bay classic loaded with briny sweetness and deep beefy broth.
Steak & Sausage Pudding
A traditional British steamed pudding filled with beef shin, sausage meat balls, and onion rings in a Marmite-enriched gravy, all wrapped in a suet pastry crust. Proper comfort food, steamed low and slow.
Sliced Beef with Sesame Seeds
Chinese crispy beef shin marinated with star anise and cinnamon, simmered, frozen, sliced paper-thin, deep-fried, then tossed with caramelized sugar and toasted sesame seeds.
Easy Beef Barley Soup
Beef barley soup built on a slow-simmered beef shin broth with carrots, parsnips, celery, and tomato, finished with chewy pearl barley. A hearty one-pot meal that doubles as a side of horseradish-dressed beef.
Meldrum Potted Hough
Traditional Scottish potted hough made from slow-simmered beef shin and marrow bones with allspice and bay leaves, set in its own natural jelly.
Polish Sausage (Kielbasa)
Homemade Polish kielbasa recipe: spiced beef and pork sausage with sweet paprika, marjoram, and fresh garlic, ground and stuffed into casings. Authentic old-world sausage-making.
