Sous Vide Steaks Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How long should you sous vide a steak? ›

Q: Can I add aromatics, like herbs or alliums, to the sous vide bag? Yes, you can. I like to add thyme or rosemary sprigs, along with sliced shallots or garlic cloves, to the bags with my steaks during cooking. Adding the same aromatics to the pan as you sear the steaks will bolster that flavor.

Kenji Lopez-Alt said that he doesn't suggest adding fat (butter or olive oil) to the bag when cooking steak sous vide. He theorized that the added fat was absorbing fat-soluble flavor compounds from the meat and then being poured down the drain with the bag juice/butter.

Can I sous vide my food in marinade? Technically, yes and no. Flavor-boosting marinades without a lot of salt and citrus are fine to cook in due to their mild nature.

For example, many chefs recommend that sous vide steak should not be cooked for longer than four hours because the connective tissue begins to break down and the steak can become mushy.

Here at Sous Vide Tools we often like to add a small amount of butter to the bag and find that for best results, flavoured butter works really well to add a little something extra during the cooking process. Our preference is to place butter into the bag itself, rather than on top of the product.

On average, fat will begin to render around 130 F and, if not done properly, is the real reason your sous vide meat is rubbery. Because you're cooking the steak low and slow for that optimal tenderness, it's easy for temperatures to not become hot enough to get that crispy edge you crave.

To prep your steak for best flavor development during the sous vide process, rub it with a light drizzle of oil before applying spices. Many of the flavor compounds in spices dissolve in oil. The oil rub will help the meat absorb these flavors while it comes up to temperature.

While we most often use robust extra virgin olive oil in our cooking and preparations, mild olive oil is a better option when infusing with the Anova Sous Vide precision cooker. Mild olive oil won't overpower the rosemary — which we chose for our herb infusion.

Does cooking a steak longer in sous vide make it more tender? ›

Sous vide cooking allows for precise temperature control and long, slow cooking, which helps to tenderize meat and reduce bold, gamey flavors. In this case, it's important to use a lower temperature than you would with other types of meat.

Sous vide cooking may seem like the ultimate "safe" way to not mess up a meal, but there are some things like raw garlic that defy that reputation. It may seem like an easy way to infuse your steak or vegetables with some garlic flavor, but it's actually best to cook your garlic before tossing it in the bag.

For sirloin sous vide, set aside about one hour of time per inch of steak thickness. So, for a one-inch sirloin, you'll need about two hours, and a two-inch sirloin needs about three hours. Regardless of thickness and your preferred doneness level, you shouldn't need longer than four hours to sous vide sirloin steak.

The first benefit is that sous vide allows you to cook a perfectly done steak every time. The other benefit is the ability to turn tougher, but more flavorful, steaks such as flank steak into very tender steaks through longer cooking times.

My rule of thumb is TWO to FOUR hours for a TWO INCH STEAK, ONE to TWO hours TOPS for a ONE INCH STEAK and no longer. Sure, you can do it for MUCH longer (I've had steaks that has been sous-vided for more than EIGHT hours) but you're really not going to like the texture.