Summer is a great time to spend with friends and family, cooking up something tasty on the grill. One true summer classic on the grill is kabobs. A typical steak kabob recipe is made with sirloin steak, or something similar. But here at Red Meat Lover we like to create recipes that are easy and family friendly. So we thought to ourselves, “Self, how can we come up with a kabob recipe that is simple, delicious and budget friendly?”. Well, the answer is…stew meat! Most people only know how to cook stew meat one way: low and slow. But we turned the tables (or should we say grills) and compared stew meat to sirloin steak in kabob form.

Steak Kabob Marinade

The kabobs were marinated overnight for about 24 hours. We marinated them with Andria’s Steak Sauce. This is a Midwest classic and is packaged right over in Illinois. It’s a great addition to grilling, cooking and makes a great kabob marinade. If you’re looking to buy this, you can go to code3bbqsupply.com and order it right from there. No matter what part of the country you’re in you can try this right at home.

Tips for Great Kabobs

We let the skewers soak in water for about an hour before we put meat on. This prevents them from burning up once they go on the hot grill. So now it’s time to get that sirloin meat on. We cut and trimmed the USDA certified Angus beef sirloin into cubes that are about the same size as the stew meat. The stew meat is pre-cut a little bit smaller than the sirloin. So for even cooking times we tried to pair up the sizes. Once the kabobs are hot off the grill, they should only take about five or six minutes to cook to a nice internal temperature of about 130 degrees. The last thing you want is an overcooked, dry kebab.

The Problem with Vegetables…

We want to share a complaint we have about kabobs…and vegetables. You go to a barbecue in someone’s backyard and they have kababs. But, in between the pieces of meat, they put green peppers, onions and mushrooms. That’s no bueno. Why? Because those vegetables are going to take much longer to cook then the meat. So you end up with perfectly cooked meat and raw green pepper. Cook the vegetables on their own skewers and all will be right in the world of kabobs.

Kabob Experiment Results

We have to say, we were surprised that stew meat is much more tender than expected. There’s a preconceived notion that how to cook stew meat is for long periods of time, but we definitely debunked that with this experiment. It’s absolutely phenomenal. The sirloin steak kabobs were a bit more tender than the stew meat. However, for the price savings you get on stew meat compared to the sirloin. We highly recommend it.

In closing, both kabob recipes were very good. There’s a significant price difference between stew meat and sirloin. That’s one advantage. The other advantage is that the stew meat comes pre-cut. Whereas we had to trim the sirloin. So, this is a great alternative to traditional sirloin kebabs, and we encourage you to try it at your next cookout. Let us know what you think in the comments below. Also, if you liked our video go ahead and hit that like button or even better subscribe to our YouTube channel because every week we share a new recipe about cooking meat made easy.