We're heading into grilling season, which means breaking out the burgers and brats. But if you're a true meat lover, the slab you'll want to be searing is the rib-eye.
The rib-eye is the bestselling cut of beef in America both at the supermarket and the steakhouse, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Beef lovers go crazy for it because of its marbling — the network of fat within muscles that melts on the grill and makes the steak juicy and tender.
The rib-eye cut is so important to ranchers that it's one of the traits they include in their selective breeding program, along with birth weight, fat thickness and docility. Their goal is to perfect a richly marbled longissimus dorsi muscle — the deep back muscle that hugs the spine that's called rib-eye once it's been cut. Once a year, bull breeders bring their stock into the barn to take a peek at the living steak.
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