Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin

Whether you’re cooking for a special occasion during the holiday season or just want to try your hand at precision cooking with minimal effort, this succulent sous vide beef tenderloin is the perfect culinary adventure! Achieve medium-rare slices from edge to edge, every time!

Sliced medium rare beef tenderloin on a cutting board.

Table of Contents

What is Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin
Why You’ll Love Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin
Ingredients:
How to Prepare Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin

Prep the beef tenderloin:
Prep the sous vide:
Sous vide the beef:
Sear the beef:

How to Serve Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin
Leftovers & Reheatign
FAQs
More beef tenderloin recipes
Save This Recipe ✉️
Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin Recipe

In this recipe:

Tenderloin

The tenderloin is arguably the best cut of beef. When masterfully cooked it’s fork tender and perfect for romantic evenings or special occasions. And where we love a great smoked beef tenderloin or a tenderloin on the grill, the sous vide method is undoubtedly the best method for cooking any cut of beef perfectly every time.

What is Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin

Once you get past the fancy-pants French verbiage, the sous vide cooking method simply describes the cooking process of vacuum-sealed food submerged underwater. From French, sous translates to “under,” while vide means “vacuum.”

The benefits of this technique are manifold. First, trapping the tenderloin in a vacuum means the meat cooks in its own juices and cannot lose flavor due to evaporation.

Second, the sous vide method is the best way to get a perfect cook every time. Contrary to popular belief, it actually makes cooking the most tender cuts of beef easier. That’s because the meat cooks at a constant temperature. And, since the food cannot cook at a higher temperature than the water itself, sous vide cooking makes it less likely you’ll overcook your cuts by accident. A little effort leads to mouth-watering culinary results you’d otherwise only find in the best restaurants.

Beef tenderloin is the perfect cut of meat for sous vide. As implied by its name, it’s the most tender area of beef, located at the rear of a steer’s spine behind the kidney, where there’s very little intramuscular fat. Because of its desirability, it also tends to be the most expensive cut of beef, which is why cooking it correctly is important, lest your money go to waste on an expensive cut of meat. That’s where the sous vide technique comes in to help get it just right for the best results.

Overhead shot of a cooked beef roast on a serving board with veggies.

Why You’ll Love Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin

Though it may feel daunting at first, a perfectly cooked is worth the fuss to take your meal to the next level. Our sous vide tenderloin recipe is a classic beef dish with big flavors and delicate, juicy results. But the best part of sous vide is that it’s a method that any home chef can master. The secret to the tenderloin is sous vide.

You might have already heard of this technique, but it’s one of my favorites to use in the kitchen because it gives such fantastic results every time. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about sous vide cooking to give you the perfect sous vide beef tenderloin recipe.

When it comes to cooking tenderloin, you want to make sure that it’s cooked evenly to reach a perfect medium-rare status. Sous vide cooking allows for this, with an even cook time for the whole steak. Not only does the meat get evenly cooked to the perfect level, but it’s also cooked in an even way. This makes for perfect tenderloin steaks with a nice crust and a mouth-melting interior. We also get the benefit of getting to choose the exact temperature we want the steak cooked to. Just have a couple of steaks? Try the sous vide bee

While it’s not nearly as difficult to prepare sous vide beef tenderloin as you might think, this recipe will require some light preparation a full 24 hours before cooking, so you’ll want to plan well in advance. In addition to the listed ingredients, make sure you have a sous vide bag or Ziploc bag on hand, as well as a large stock pot or dedicated sous vide container for the sous vide water bath.

A tenderloin trimmed and tied with butcher twine on a wire rack.

Ingredients:

For the beef:

Beef tenderloin – trimmed and trussed for best results.
Salt – we always use kosher salt
Canola oil
Butter – we always use unsalted butter
Garlic cloves
Fresh Rosemary
Fresh Thyme

To Serve:

Herb compound butter, red wine pan sauce, smoked crab imperial, peppercorn sauce, or demi-glacé
Freshly ground black pepper

How to Prepare Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin

Prep the beef tenderloin:

24 hours before cooking (be sure you have the time before you get going), pat the beef tenderloin dry with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel. Truss the cut with kitchen twine and season it liberally with salt. Lay your tenderloin on a wire rack, then place the rack over a baking sheet in the fridge.

Prep the sous vide:

Set your sous vide to 130 degrees F. If you’re using a stock pot, you’ll want a cooking thermometer to make sure you’ve got the temperature dialed in. A dedicated sous vide cooker will make things easier since they usually have built-in thermometers.

Seal the beef tenderloin in a vacuum bag, or in a Ziploc with all the air squeezed out.

Sous vide the beef:

Gently place the vacuum-sealed bag in the water bath with the sous vide device, ensuring that the entire tenderloin is submerged under 1-2 inches of water.

Sous vide the beef for about 2 hours. Since sous vide doesn’t need a lot of attention, feel free to relax nearby. You’ve earned it!

Sear the beef:

After 2 hours of cooking, remove the beef from the bath and take it out of the bag.

Pat the beef dry with paper towels, taking care to absorb all of the excess moisture.

Preheat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat and add the canola oil until just beginning to smoke.

Add the tenderloin to the hot skillet and sear on all sides, about 5 to 7 minutes total.

Add the butter, garlic, rosemary, and thyme into the skillet and baste the tenderloin once everything has melted, rolling the meat to avoid overcooking it on any side. Baste for about 5 minutes.

Remove the skillet from heat and transfer the tenderloin to a cutting board to rest. Place the compound butter over the top of the beef to melt as it rests. Let the beef roast rest for 7 to 10 minutes. The meat should be at 135 degrees F with an instant-read thermometer inserted at the thickest part.

How to Serve Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin

When you’re ready to serve, slice the beef into individual filet-sized portions about 1 1/2 to 2” thick.

Serve your mouth-watering masterpiece with a sliver of herb compound butter and freshly ground black pepper on top. If you want to go the extra mile, though, you’ve got to try serving your sous vide tenderloin with our signature Red Wine Pan Sauce for a Michelin-starred steakhouse flair.

If you’re looking for the perfect sides and pairings to go with your sous vide filet, there are tons of options to round out the meal. For an earthier side, I love my Umami Smoked Mushrooms, but if you’re looking for an accompaniment at a holiday dinner, your guests will fawn over my Keto Creamed Spinach or Smoked Baked Potato. For a seafood twist, why not serve your sous vide beef tenderloin with my Smoked Crab Imperial for a surf and turf flair?

Leftovers & Reheatign

To store leftover sous vide tenderloin, place the leftovers in an airtight container and store them in the refrigerator for no more than 3 days.

To reheat beef tenderloin sous vide, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the whole tenderloin from the fridge, allow it to reach room temperature, and loosely wrap each individual slice of tenderloin in tin foil. Place the foiled meat onto a wire rack and place it directly in the oven with a drip tray underneath. Cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, until heated through.

Close up of sliced tenderloin showing a medium rare edge to edge pink color.

FAQs

What are the benefits of sous vide cooking?

Among the numerous benefits of sous vide cooking are consistency, ease, and reliability. Because the sous vide process traps the meat in a vacuum, it cooks in its own juices and will melt in your mouth.
As, it’s cooked in a consistently heated swirling water bath and cannot get hotter than the water around it, it’s difficult to overcook the meat. And best of all, it will come out the same every time, leaving doubt in the trash bin.

What are the disadvantages of sous vide cooking?

Expert chefs are known to complain that because sous vide is so easy, it’s also boring. Well, if you consider perfectly cooked meat boring, then sure. Others will tell you it brings out too much flavor. Personally, I’m not sure how flavor is a bad thing. The real disadvantage of sous vide cooking is that it takes some planning. You’ll need at least a day in advance for some light prep work.

Is beef tenderloin a good cut to sous vide?

In fact, beef tenderloin is the quintessential candidate for the sous vide method. It’s perfect the cooking method because it’s a quick cook in the sous vide, under 2 hours, and the science behind this method guarantees restaurant quality with edge-to-edge perfect temperature. It’s the perfect way to cook a roast to your desired internal temp with minimal effort.