Cuts · UK butchery
Pork tenderloin
The leanest muscle on the pig and the fastest-cooking cut in this catalogue. Its main hazard is its name's similarity to 'pork loin', which is a completely different and much larger cut.
Known as
The same muscle carries different names in different butchery systems, and some of those names mean different cuts elsewhere. Where a name is ambiguous, BBQHQ says so rather than picking one.
- United Kingdom
- Pork tenderloin
- Pork fillet
What to ask a butcher for
- United Kingdom: Pork tenderloin, in the US.
Where it comes from on the animal
Pork tenderloin (psoas major)
Back, inner · low use · connective tissue: low
The least-worked muscle on the animal, and the leanest. Cooks in a fraction of the time of anything else on this list, which is why it belongs on a barbecue only with a thermometer.
Muscles: Psoas major
Asking a butcher for it
Named the way uk butchery names it. If the counter does not recognise the name, the anatomy is the fallback: ask for the cut by where it comes from.
- What to say
- Pork tenderloin, or Pork fillet (GB) depending where you are.
- If that draws a blank
- Ask for back, inner — the muscle is Psoas major.
- What to specify
- Thickness, which governs the timing more than weight does — the usual range is 40–60 mm. Typical weight is 350–600 g.
What it is suited to
Derived from how hard the muscle works and how much connective tissue it carries, which is the pairing that decides whether a cut wants a fire under it or beside it. BBQHQ does not rank cuts and does not name a best one.
- Low connective tissue: there is nothing here that a long cook would improve. Direct or two-zone heat, taken off at a doneness rather than at a texture, and every extra minute past that point costs moisture.
- A supporting muscle that does little work, so it is tender to begin with and has nothing to gain from time.
BBQHQ holds cooking evidence for this cut as pork tenderloin.
What to use instead
A substitute is not the same as an equivalent. These are graded, because “yes, use that instead” is the answer that ruins dinners: most real substitutions work only once something about the cook changes.
Workable, once you change the cook
One muscle, and about as unambiguous as pork gets across systems. The British name is usually 'fillet' and the American 'tenderloin', and both point at the psoas major.
- 'Pork loin' and 'pork tenderloin' are different cuts and are routinely confused in recipes on both sides.
- No US specification has been read to confirm trim.
Asking for it in another country
US butchery: Overlapping cut
One muscle, and about as unambiguous as pork gets across systems. The British name is usually 'fillet' and the American 'tenderloin', and both point at the psoas major.
What differs
- 'Pork loin' and 'pork tenderloin' are different cuts and are routinely confused in recipes on both sides.
- No US specification has been read to confirm trim.
The UK side of these mappings rests on AHDB’s published cutting specifications, which BBQHQ has read. The US side does not: USDA’s Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications and the Beef Checkoff cut pages both refuse automated access, so no mapping here reaches “same cut” across two butchery systems. See the open question.
Typical size
350–600 g