Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin With Port Wine And Garlic - Simply Recipes

Why Make This

• Sous vide cooking removes the guesswork and helps you avoid overcooking pricey beef tenderloin.  
• A double sear before and after sous vide gives the roast incredible flavor and a beautiful crust.  
• Step-by-step guidance covers everything from sealing the bag to getting the right doneness.  

This post is brought to you in partnership with Joule: Sous Vide by ChefSteps.

I have always considered beef tenderloin a "high stress" meal and given it a wide berth. This is an expensive cut of meat—it's not one that you want to mess up by trusting an untrustworthy recipe or forgetting to set a timer.

Add to this, roast beef tenderloin most often appears on menus around the holidays. I've never quite been able to overcome the terrifying possibility of ruining both a wage-devouring cut of meat and Christmas dinner.

But then I started doing more sous vide cooking, and with it came a confidence in cooking things that previously intimidated me. Like fish. And pork chops that actually taste like something.

Maybe, just maybe, it could do the same for beef tenderloin. Spoiler alert: Of course it could.

New to Sous Vide Cooking? Start Here

• Everything You've Been Wondering About Sous Vide Cooking at Home
• How to Use Your New Sous Vide Immersion Circulator
• How to Seal Foods Without Using a Vacuum Sealer

Let's talk about beef tenderloin for a second. This cut comes from the center of the loin, where the muscle is very tender and lean (not a lot of fat). Typically, this cut is sliced into the individual steaks we know and love called filet mignon.

It's a small cut, usually weighing less than 8 pounds total. When you compare that to the size of a fully-grown steer and how much meat that steer can provide, you begin to understand why the tenderloin is such an expensive, coveted cut of meat.

The fact that it's tender actually makes it really easy to cook—but also very easy to overcook. Tenderloin can easily go from melt-in-your-mouth to tough and chewy if you take your eye off it for a second.

The Benefits of Cooking Beef Sous Vide

This is where sous vide comes into play. Sous vide is a very gentle and slow kind of cooking. The beef is coddled in the sous vide water bath, cooking gradually in its own juices over the course of a few hours. The sous vide immersion circulator (I use a Joule) also keeps the temperature tightly controlled, so the tenderloin never has a chance to overcook.

Basically, it takes out the guesswork and the potential for human error, giving us a 100% stress-free meal.

To make this beef tenderloin even more special, I give it a double sear: once before it goes into the sous vide bath and again after it comes up. The first time builds flavor in the dish; the second time gives the cooked roast a nice outer crust.

Use some Port wine (I like tawny Port) to deglaze the pan, then pour it over the beef. While it cooks, the beef picks up the rich flavor of the Port—so good. And, of course, cooking juices become a delicious sauce that you can serve alongside the roast.

How To Slice Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin

Slice it thinly like roast beef or thick like filet mignon—either way is a winner. While the tenderloin was cooking sous vide, I spent the time roasting a few sheet pans of winter vegetables and making a of polenta to serve alongside.