Our Honest Porter Road Review – Is It Worth It?

We first reviewed Porter Road way back in 2019, and it’s been near the top of our list of best meat delivery companies ever since.

In the interest of quality control, I decided to give Porter Road another try and ordered the Best of Porter Road mixed box so that I could get an idea of the quality of various cuts of meat & sausages.

Porter Road sent me this meat in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

How Porter Road works

Porter Road was created out of co-founders James Peisker and Chris Carter’s struggle to find high-quality, fresh meat for their hospitality business. They work with a small group of local farms that raise their animals to the highest standards. All meat is then hand-cut at the Porter Road facility in Kentucky.

You won’t find the usual USDA meat gradings on the Porter Road website. Instead, they have come up with their own criteria for selecting meat based on how the animal is raised.

• Partner farms raise their animals outside and are fed vegetarian non-GMO feed with no hormones or antibiotics.
• The animals are “pasture-raised” and then finished when a grain blend which helps produce better marbling and flavor
• All their beef is dry-aged for at least 14 days

The majority of Porter Road meat ships fresh, not frozen, which is a little unusual for meat delivery businesses. The idea here is that frozen meat causes some slight chemical changes which affect the final product. The way the meat is packaged and shipped makes this safe.

Unlike some companies that force you into subscriptions, all the meat from Porter Road can be ordered À la carte, although you can save money by selecting a subscription option.

Orders over $125 qualify for flat-rate shipping, which is free for many Eastern states, $15 for central, and then $40 for Western states.

What’s the range like?

I found the website simple to use. You can shop by beef, pork, lamb, or chicken, and then in each category, you can browse by cut.

There’s a lot of selection, with over 50 cuts of beef to choose from, including bone-in and boneless ribeye as well as cowboy-cut ribeye.

I appreciate that you can find plenty of specialty cuts, including Picanha, whole brisket, whole Bavette, Tri-Tip, pork brisket, and heart steak.

They’re also one of the few places that sell brisket online that allow you to get just the flat, or a brisket half.

You can also choose from a range of curated boxes at various price points that the butchers have selected. These would make great gifts.

What I cooked and how it went

I ordered the Best of Porter Road box for this review to get an idea of the quality of a range of different items.

What does the box include? 

• 2 dry-aged steaks (either Ribeyes or Strips, based on availability)
• 2 boneless pork chops
• 2lbs dry-aged ground beef
• 1lb country breakfast sausage
• 1lb cherrywood smoked bacon
• 1lb chorizo sausage links 

How much does it cost? 

The Best of Porter Road box costs $128 for a one-time delivery, but you can save 10% off your first order by signing up for their mailing list, or use their “subscribe and save” option to save 15% if you set up recurring deliveries. 

This comes out to around 8 lbs of meat at $4.41 per serving. 

Dry Aged New York Strip Steaks

I found the dry-aged steaks from Porter Road to be absolutely delicious. I grilled them on my Napoleon Phantom Prestige, then reverse-seared them. They were tender and packed full of flavor.

The marbling on the steaks was similar to something you would find in a USDA prime steak, and it was present throughout the entire steak. Additionally, the fat cap was trimmed down already so there was no trimming required before cooking the steak. 

Boneless Pork Chops 

I seared the boneless pork chops in my Schwank infrared grill and finished them with a cherry apple habanero glaze. They were delicious! 

The meat was lean, but tender. The fat cap was the perfect size to get some moisture into the meat but not too big. I really enjoyed the quality of these chops! 

Country Breakfast Sausage

I used the Country Breakfast Sausage to make some jalapeño cheddar sausage balls, and they turned out delicious! I combined the meat with jalapeños, cheese, and a bit of Bisquick mix and then smoked them until they reached 165°F.

I like the flavor of the Country Breakfast Sausage a lot and I would definitely order it again.

Is Porter Road meat delivery worth it? 

Porter Road offers various cuts of meat that may be more difficult for you to source locally, depending on where you live. For example, you’re not likely to walk into your local grocery store and find a volcano cut beef shank.

Porter Road ships quickly and gives you a bigger variety of cuts. 

Another great benefit of Porter Road is that you can be sure the meat was raised and harvested humanely, which cannot be said for all butchers and grocery stores. If quality, humane meat is important to you, then an option like Porter Road may be precisely what you want. 

Especially if you don’t have access to any high-quality local butcher shops. I would say the prices at Porter Road compare with what you would find at a gourmet butcher.