If you are looking for cheap but cheerful best smoking meats for a budget, here are some great smoking ideas to start you off.

You’ll likely need to go to your local butcher for these cuts as supermarkets won’t stock most of these cuts. Most people forget about them as they are tough to break down, but perfect for low and slow smoker cooking.

Best Smoking Meats on a Budget

Best Beef Cuts for Cheap and Happy Smoking

• Beef Cheeks
• Beef Shin
• Oxtail (the tail of the cow)
• Chuck steak
• Chuck roast (great for pulled beef)
• Feather blade or top blade steak (from the cow’s shoulder)
• Round steak or silverside/topside (from the hindquarters of the cow)

All of these beef cuts are tough and muscular because the animal was constantly using them during its life, whether its cheeks from constantly chewing or legs from moving around.

All these cuts need to be delicious is plenty of time to break down the connective tissues, making them perfect for low and slow cooking in the smoker.

If you need a recipe for smoking chuck roast try here.

Best Cheap Pork Cuts for Smoking

• Pork Loin Roast – bone-in is cheaper than boneless
• Pork Chops
• Pork Neck
• Pork Cheeks
• Pork Shoulder (perfect for pulled pork)
• Spare ribs (less expensive than leaner babyback ribs)

Pork is already much cheaper to buy than beef and chicken, but using these tougher and not so popular cuts is cheaper again.

Pork chops don’t take very long to smoke, and are also great for grilling as well as being easy on the pocket.

You might enjoy our Instagram video on smoking pork loin.

Cheap Chicken Cuts for the Smoker

• Chicken Leg Quarters
• Chicken thighs – bone-in is cheaper than boneless
• Chicken wings
• Chicken drumsticks

Buying chicken fillets or a whole chicken can get expensive, but chicken leg quarters, bone-in thighs, wings and drumsticks are cheap and great cuts for smoking. They don’t need too long in the smoker either.

If you would like a recipe for chicken thighs in the smoker have a look at this one:

Inexpensive Lamb Cuts for Smoking

• Lamb breast (from the lamb’s underbelly)
• Chump (taken from the back of the animal)
• Scrag (taken from high up the neck and cheaper than further down the neck)
• Middle neck (the lower neck of the lamb is a more expensive cut)

Lamb is generally an expensive meat that people usually enjoy occasionally, but there are cheaper cuts to be found that are great to smoke in your BBQ smoker or wood pellet grill.

Mutton is cheaper than lamb because it’s much tougher, but mutton is a great meat to smoke slow and low too.

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