Cuts · US butchery
Pork tenderloin
The US name for the psoas major, the cut the National Pork Board times separately.
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 States
- Pork tenderloin
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 us 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.
- If that draws a blank
- Ask for back, inner — the muscle is Psoas major.
- What to specify
- Typical weight is 400–700 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.
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
Called pork fillet in British butchery. The same muscle, and the mapping is as clean as any in this catalogue.
- British retail more often uses 'fillet', which US readers may not recognise.
Asking for it in another country
UK butchery: Overlapping cut
Called pork fillet in British butchery. The same muscle, and the mapping is as clean as any in this catalogue.
What differs
- British retail more often uses 'fillet', which US readers may not recognise.
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
400–700 g