Go to the Recipe: Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin Roast
Sear from cold and then bring to the desired internal temperature, or reheat, rest a spell to lower temp before searing to reduce any chance of going past desired internal temperature.
Do you reheat then sear or sear from cold post initial ice bath?
Hello Kathy, You can cook and chill to have ready many days in advance. If you can, I would sear, slice and serve at your destination. If you want to sear on the grill at your house then you will still have to reheat at your destination. Slice and serve at the destination and not at your house.
We are making whole beef tenderloin for Xmas Eve. We have cut it into three 2 1/2 LB pieces and sealed in freezer bags. My question is can we cook it the night before and then finish it the next day. Do we put in ice bath when finished cooking and then refrigerate it overnight? If we sear it the next morning on the grill before transporting to daughters house 1 1/2 hour trip do we keep it whole till we get to our destination and then cut and put back into the jus ? or do we sear and cut at our house.
Lol. That’s on you.
moron
6lbs of prime fillet @ 134 degrees for 3.5 hours; FIRST TIME! Very happy with a perfect medium rare. ALL loved it and couldn't stop saying "wow". I did a light sear on a hot natural gas grill with only salt and pepper. Before bagging, I put a 1/2 stick of butter in a pan and foamed it adding about 5 cloves of crushed garlic at the end to cook it (not raw, not at all toasted), then added the Time and Rosemary to blanch it in the hot butter (smelled soooo good). Let that cool a bit so not to melt the vac bag, then bagged the meat, added all the aromatics and butter, vacuumed it tight, and stashed in the fridge for overnight. On Christmas morning, I set up my rig, pre-heated as advertised, dropped in the meat, and Viola! Perfection! I am going to be doing a LOT of Sous Vide cooking. Couldn't be happier. WOW!
So sad, I have recommended chefsteps.com to so many, and I am have been totally betrayed. I have sold so many joule devices. Is it the new company that bought y'all and their lawyers that made the decision that raised the temperature on your beef tenderloin recipe? I made the tenderloin recipe as I have done on a dozen occassions, y'all raised the "Our Fave" temp to be more like medium well, versus medium rare. I wasted a spectacular amount of money for a big party on grossly over cooked beef. Thanks guys. Way to go. I'm sure the lawyers are thrilled. No law suits here on gym shoe tasting $30 a pound beef.
Should I use the method mentioned in the Wellington recipe of drying it out on a rack with rock salt in the fridge first? If so, how many days can you leave it like that?
Pour some beef broth in hot pan to deglaze. Once it reduces a and thickens a bit, throw in some chunks of cold butter and swirl around quickly to emulsify. This will give you a nice pan sauce.
How did you make the sauce? This is my greatest bugbear!
Take it to the next level and make it a Surf & Turf! Butterfly the tenderloin, lay lightly poached lobster tails down the center, glue meat back together with Activa, let "cure" 12 hours in the fridge, then cook as directed in this recipe. The WOW factor comes when you carve the roast at the table and your guests can't figure out how the lobster got inside the seemingly whole roast! Bearnaise sauce is perfect for both the tenderloin & the lobster
I have noticed that cooking sous vide to a medium rare temperature, the meat will look redder than expected; however the consistency will not be "rare".
I did the same for a family dinner for 8 and it was hands down the best. I've been asked to make the same beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner.
Anyone know a sauce recipe?
No. Slow cookers are incapable of making this dish. You'll end up braising the beef which I can't imagine anyone would want to do with tenderloin. Joule and the other immersion circulators have been around a while. There's a used market ( eBay ) where you can get them cheap. I use 6 in my kitchen and bought 3 of them as "open box" used machines and never had a problem. Paid under 100 bucks for them. If you want to go low buck buy a laboratory circulator without digital display. 50 bucks or less and they are the grandparents of Joule and other modern units.
But a Joule is your best bet. They are small and in my experience just as precise as 1500 dollar lab units just limited to smaller amounts of water. That limit should never be a problem in a home kitchen. The WiFi interface is a bit of a PIA but I understand its use in order to keep the unit's size down. They use a "film" heat source which is a little slower than a coil but again, that keeps the size down.
Sous Vide is a form of precision cooking. Slow cooking is a form of convenience cooking. No way they ever get married.
Can you present the tenderloin one day ahead before you sou vide the tenderloin the next day? If so, will it need more sous vide time? Thank you.
Gail, slow cooking a beautiful tenderloin in a slow cooker will invariably render a dried out roast. Even the best Prime tenderloin does not contain enough intramuscular fat to hold up to slow cooking. You would actually be better off oven roasting it or cutting the whole tenderloin into steaks and grilling them. The good news is that you can actually cook in a heated water bath without an immersion heater, such as Joule. All you need is a pot of suitable size to completely submerse the food you are cooking and a thermometer (preferably a digital model with a remote readout - available online or at almost any department store). You bring the water up to temp on the stove and try to hold it at the desired temp as closely as the heat source will allow and when the temp of the water bath increases above the desired target temperature, you simply bring it back down to the target temperature by taking the pot off the heat. This involves moving the pot on and off heat with the objective of holding the water bath as close as possible to the target temperature. A more rapid reduction can be achieved by adding ice to the water bath - but remember, this adds water to the pot and, if too much ice is added, you will be removing water from the bath to avoid an overflow. This method is very tedious in that it requires the cook to closely monitor (translated to stand over and do not take your eyes off of) the thermometer. Trust me. You do this once and, while you may achieve great results, you will not want to do it again because it is just too time consuming and too fussy of a process to monitor. The investment in an immersion heater is a worthwhile investment that will change the way you cook certain foods for as long as there is electricity available via an electrical receptacle and there is clean water available from your sink faucet. Hope this helps.
Can this be done in a slow cooker? I don't own a joule
I used this recipe with a 3.5 pound prime beef tenderloin. I split the tenderloin in half, and essentially doubled the recipe. I placed each piece and the associated herbs in separate bags and cooked at 140 degrees for 3 hours. It was, hands down, the best tenderloin or filet mignon I have ever cooked in my life! Do give this recipe a try, but remember, it all starts with a great cut of high quality meat.
Followed this and the associated sub-recipes to a "T" for a Chateaubriand with friends last weekend. (Valentines)
The Demi Glace was silky, flavorful and worth repeating. The gravy made from the bone broth based recipe was doughy, extraneous and essentially unusable, I cooked the seasoned, trussed, pre-seared and vacuum sealed 4lb PRIME beef tenderloin sous vide for 3 hours at 125. It was flavorful, tender and a nice deep pink for the internal meat, but even though I did a good initial searing and a thorough final searing after sous vide, I was not very happy with the external texture. I prefer a crisper, more carmelized exterior for Chateaubriand and will be more likely to use a standard grilling approach in the future for such a nice cut of meat.
I love sous vide for recipes where it is appropriate and helpful, but some dishes are better done otherwise. Unfortunately, there is no way to thoroughly vet all of the enthusiastic glowing reviews and comments without accurately following an online recipe and judging the results for oneself. This one just goes into the experience column, not to repeat.
Made this last night. 2 lb, 3 in thick tenderloin. I cooked it to 137 degrees for 3 hours and it was awesome!! I have been using a wok to sear to help reduce the grease spatters and it seems to help. Joule has helped me expand my menus with expensive cuts of meat and fish that I was afraid to buy in the past. My guests have told me they feel like they are dining in a 5 star restaurant at my house. What a compliment! I have a secret ingredient... Joule!!!
Made this for Christmas dinner — first try with my Joule and on a pretty expensive cut of beef. It was positively the best beef tenderloin I’ve ever had. Anywhere. My adult son, who rarely raves about food, kept saying how great it was. A+ he said over and over. Cooked 2 pounder at 133 (medium rare) for two hours. Pre and post seared as instructed. Put the pre sear juices in the freezer for a couple of minutes to cool down, as recommended by another commenter. This recipe absolutely is foolproof. (Recommend watching the video — it’s very helpful.)
Yes this was left out. From the pics look like they do at the very end. I do it during the final sear
I have 2- 5.5# beef tenderloins.....we are going for Medium Rare (135-138 degrees?). Would it be the same 2-3 hours? Don't want to jack-up Christmas Dinner, so any advice is very appreciated. :-)
Anyone know the time and temp for a 4.4lb beef tenderloin? Thanks
@Brian Sullivan where in the beef Wellington post do they address stuffing the beef tenderloin?
https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/doughboy-beef-welly that should address it a little
What would be the temp and timing adjustments for a ‘stuffed’, center cut beef tenderloin? Stuffing is comprised of mushrooms, shallots, breadcrumbs and Marsala. Need this before Christmas.
Great recipe
Can I put 2 tenderloins in one bag or should I use two bags and can I cook them at the same time?
Can you post the demi glaze sauce recipe?
I'm making stuffed Beef Tenderloin (stuffed with spinach and mushrooms). Would I need to change the cooking method or temperature?
Can i make same technique w a sirloin roast
Hi. What was the outcome? Did you split it?
Needs salt! Also, please let the juices cool before adding to the bag. They melted right through the bag! Cooking temperatures seem a little low. Went with 133° for medium rare. I got rare. Aside from these things, the end result was great!
Any tips on your demi glace?
Made this last night with a tenderloin I got from Sams Club. It was marinated with a mild roasted garlic marinade. It was on the small side. I followed the directions, seared it while it was cold, put it in the bag and sous vide for 1-1/2 hours at 135. Took it out and seared it for less than a minute. It was perfect. Going back to Sams today for more. Thanks for the tips.
I did a practice 5lb, 2.5" thick tenderloin at 138 degrees for 2:15 and it was perfect. Pre-seared, and a quick sear after. I now want to do 4 tenderloins, total weight almost 18lbs, 2.5" thick. It looks like my cook time is the same because it is based on the thickness of the meat, not the total weight? Just checking to be sure I do it right. My practice tenderloin was Amazing!
I cooked the tenderloin in heavy duty ziptop bag(s) I cut my tenderloin into 2 pieces, salt, pepper, butter and oil. The tenderloin was some of the best I have eaten. ( made demi glace too)
If I have a 4lb beef tenderloin, that is 3 inches thick and 14 inches long. Would it be best to cut into two pieces? If yes, can I then cook both pieces in separate bags at the same time? in the same bath? I don't know if having more than one bag in a pot with my Joule effects the overall cooking time.
Thanks!
Yessssssss
I can attest that cheap grocery store bags are not enough. The heated butter and cooking juices melted right thru the bag. Had to run out to the grocery store on Christmas Eve to get name brand (Hefty) freezer zip bags. I've had no problems with the cheap store bags before, but this is the first time I've poured a hot butter sauce into the bag before beginning the water bath.
If you don't have a vacuum sealer you can just push a zip top bag down in the water to remove the air, then zip the top, and clip it to the side.
When do you apply salt and pepper to the meat?
Maybe a silly question, but are you supposed to seal the bags that you cook in? it always looks like they leave them open and just clip them to the side of the sous vide vessel.
