There's a moment when you set a cowboy cut ribeye down on the counter and everyone in the kitchen stops what they're doing. It's the bone. A thick-cut, bone-in ribeye doesn't look like dinner so much as an event, and that's before it ever touches heat.
We've just added the Grass Fed & Grass Finished Organic Cowboy Cut Ribeye to our beef lineup, and it's one we've wanted to carry for a while.
What a cowboy cut actually is
A cowboy cut is a bone-in ribeye cut thick, with the rib bone left in and trimmed short. It's the same prized section of the rib primal that gives you a standard ribeye, with two differences that matter.
The first is thickness. At roughly 1.7 pounds, this steak is cut deep enough that you get a real temperature gradient, a hard crust on the outside and an edge-to-edge blush in the middle. Thin steaks don't give you that. You're either searing or you're cooking through, never both.
The second is the bone. It insulates the meat closest to it, so that section cooks slower and stays especially tender. The meat right along the bone is the part people fight over, and there's a reason for that.
Where this beef comes from
These cattle are raised on a 100% organic grass diet from start to finish. Not grass-fed and then finished on grain in the last months, which is common and which changes the flavor considerably. Grass the whole way.
They come from independent family farms in Southeast Iowa through Thunder Ridge Beef, where ranchers have been raising livestock sustainably for generations. No grain, no hormones, no antibiotics.
That matters for freshness too. A lot of grass-fed beef sold in the US is imported from New Zealand or Australia, which means it's been aged and shipped a long way before it reaches you. Ours is local, never aged, and always fresh. Every cut is USDA-inspected and certified Halal.
How to cook it
Grass-fed beef is leaner than grain-finished beef, so it cooks faster and is less forgiving at the top end. Two rules: pull it earlier than you think, and don't skip the rest.
Reverse sear is the method we'd recommend for a steak this thick.
- Take it out of the fridge 45 minutes ahead. A cold center on a steak this size is the main reason people end up with a gray band.
- Season generously with coarse salt on all sides, the bone included.
- Put it in a 250°F oven on a rack until the internal temperature hits 115°F for medium rare. Depending on your oven, that's usually 35 to 50 minutes. Use a thermometer, not a timer.
- Get a cast iron pan ripping hot with a high-smoke-point oil. Sear 60 to 90 seconds a side, then stand it on the fat cap for another 30 seconds.
- Rest it 10 minutes on a cutting board. It'll carry over to about 130°F.
Slice against the grain, off the bone, and serve the bone to whoever earned it.
A few notes
Salt early or salt right before, never in between. Forty minutes out is the dead zone where salt has pulled moisture to the surface but hasn't reabsorbed yet.
Butter is optional here. A well-marbled ribeye renders plenty of its own fat, and grass-fed beef has a mineral, genuinely beefy flavor that's worth tasting on its own terms the first time you cook one.
One cowboy cut comfortably feeds two, or one person with serious intentions.
Ready to cook one? Our Grass Fed & Grass Finished Organic Cowboy Cut Ribeye is cut fresh, never aged, USDA-inspected and certified Halal. Approximately 1.7 lbs, shipped from our Southeast Iowa family farms.
You can also browse the rest of our Organic Grass Fed & Grass Finished Beef.