This Fruit Can Make Your Inexpensive Steak More Tender

I love an occasional steak at home for a special dinner or date night with my husband. But with beef prices climbing for months and showing no signs of slowing down, our steak dates have become much less frequent. Rib eyes, New York strips, and filets are simply not in our regular rotation anymore. 

But recently, I remembered a trick I used while developing our classic beef bulgogi recipe. During recipe testing, I compared thinly sliced rib eye steak (the traditional cut) with more affordable top sirloin. To help the less expensive cut match the tenderness of rib eye, I turned to an unlikely ingredient: green kiwi.

Many traditional bulgogi recipes use grated Asian pear as a natural tenderizer, but because it’s seasonal, I needed a year-round alternative. Green kiwi contains actinidin, a natural enzyme that breaks down muscle fibers in meat, making tougher cuts more tender. The kiwi worked remarkably well in thinly sliced bulgogi. So I wondered: Could it improve an everyday steak, too?

How I tested

To find out, I bought top sirloin steaks, which cost $13.99 per pound at my local Publix grocery store. For comparison, rib eye was $18.99 per pound, while New York strip came in at $21.99 per pound. I tested four steaks: one with no kiwi, one marinated with kiwi for 15 minutes, one marinated for 30 minutes, and one marinated for an hour. 

For each test, I grated a peeled green kiwi on the fine side of a box grater to form kiwi pulp, rubbed it over both sides of the steak, then scraped it off before cooking them. After patting the steaks dry, I seasoned them with salt and pepper and cooked each one in the same cast-iron skillet over high heat to an internal temperature of 120°F. I let the steaks rest for about 10 minutes before slicing.

The results weren’t what I had hoped. In my test, the plain steak — seasoned only with salt and pepper — was the clear winner. It was juicier, beefier, and more enjoyable than any of the kiwi-treated steaks. The steak that marinated for an hour looked gray and almost steamed before it ever hit the skillet, and all three of the kiwi-treated steaks were drier and more lackluster than the unmarinated one.

So why did the kiwi marinade work for bulgogi but not for a whole sirloin steak? Thin bulgogi slices allow the enzyme to tenderize nearly the entire piece. By contrast, a whole top sirloin steak is so thick that the enzyme mostly acts on the surface; plus, the interior of the steak is already fairly tender on its own, so it doesn’t necessarily need more tenderizing.

At this point, I was ready to write off the kiwi trick altogether, at least in terms of whole steaks. But then I wondered if I was testing it on the wrong cut. Top sirloin steak is already fairly tender. Maybe kiwi’s enzymatic magic would be more useful on a genuinely tough steak.

Why kiwi makes inexpensive steak more tender

I picked up eye of round, one of the leanest and most economical cuts available (my neighborhood Publix didn’t carry it, but I found it for $7.99 per pound at Aldi). This time, I skipped the one-hour test and compared just three steaks: one with no kiwi, one marinated with kiwi for 15 minutes, and one marinated with kiwi for 30 minutes.

The results of this test changed my mind. The steak that marinated for 15 minutes was noticeably juicier and more tender than the one that didn’t marinate at all. The 30-minute version was only slightly more tender, but it had already started sacrificing some of its juiciness, suggesting that even an extra 15 minutes was too long. (The enzymes in kiwi continue breaking down proteins over time. Leave it on too long, and the meat’s surface can become mushy and lose moisture.)

So should you start rubbing every steak with kiwi? Probably not. If you’re cooking a naturally tender cut like rib eye, strip steak, filet, or even top sirloin, I’d skip the kiwi altogether. Those steaks are already tender enough (and also on the pricier side).

But if you’re trying to stretch your grocery budget with a tougher, less expensive cut like eye of round, a brief 15-minute marinade in kiwi can make a noticeable difference. It won’t magically transform bargain steak into filet mignon, but it can take an inexpensive, tough cut from chewy to pleasantly tender — and that’s enough to put steak dates in regular rotation.