Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

Joule® Turbo Sous Vide

Butcher’s twine

12-inch Skillet

12-inch by 18-inch Heavy-duty vacuum-seal bag(s)

2-gallon Ziplock-style freezer bag(s)

Breville Joule® Oven Air Fryer Pro

Baking/Cooling rack(s)

1/2 Sheet pan(s)

10-inch Nonstick skillet

Whisk

Pastry brush

Small fine-mesh strainer

Beef chuck roast

Neutral oil

Kosher salt

Black pepper

Garlic clove(s)

Rosemary

Herbs

Egg white(s)

Beef Stock

Selecting the best chuck roast: The best marbling is found in beef chuck from the rib end, so ask your butcher or meat counter for that. If you don’t want to trim and truss the roast yourself, ask your butcher to do that for you.
 
Beef stock options for jus: Along with homemade or store-bought beef stock, you can also use our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes">Ultimate Beef Bouillon Cubes</a> to make a jus. In Step 9, add 1 bouillon cube and 240 ml (1 cup) water to pan once fond begins to fry in fat, stir to combine, and bring to a simmer, adding more water if needed to reach desired consistency. Strain jus through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl or small saucepan, and season with salt and pepper to taste (keep in mind that bouillon cubes are well-seasoned as-is, so you most likely won’t need to season with any additional salt).

Before we begin

Heat sous vide water bath to desired temperature according to our doneness guide. 
 
[f 129]: Medium-rare and real rosy
[f 133]: Still rocking some rosy hues
[f 136]: Medium (our favorite)
[f 144]: Medium-well
[f 162]: Well-done

Heat sous vide bath

Using a sharp knife, trim away and discard silver skin from surface of roast. Using your hands, gently pull roast apart at natural seam to expose tough layer of fat in center. Trim away tough fat and silver skin from interior of roast. 
 
Arrange pieces back together along natural seam to form a cylindrical roast shape, bottom-side up (the less attractive side). Cut 6 to 10 equal lengths of butcher’s twine long enough to tie around the roast. Slide lengths of twine under roast, spacing them at 1-inch intervals. Starting from center and working outwards, tie and knot each length of twine tightly around meat to create a cylindrical roast. When tying knots, loop ends of twine around each other 3 times before pulling taut and tying off knot. Once roast is fully trussed, trim away excess twine from each knot.

Trim and tie roast

Season roast on all sides with salt and pepper. In a 12-inch skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add roast and cook, turning occasionally, until deeply browned on all sides, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer roast to a plate and set aside. 
 
Lower heat to medium, add garlic and rosemary to pan and cook, swirling constantly, until fragrant and garlic is golden brown, about 1 minute. Remove from heat.

Presear chuck roast

Place roast in an 18- by 12-inch vacuum-seal bag or double-bag in 2-gallon ziplock-style freezer bags. Add toasted garlic and rosemary to bag, along with any pan drippings. 
 
Seal bag using water displacement method or vacuum sealer.

Bag up roast

When you are cooking heavy food or cooking at temperatures above [f 158], the seams of ziplock-style bags can fail and expose food to water from the sous vide bath. When cooking a recipe like this, opt for heavy-duty vacuum-seal bags designed for sous vide cooking if possible; if you must use ziplock-style bags, double-bag to reduce the chance of bag failure. 
 
Place roast in a 2-gallon ziplock-style freezer bag, then place bag in second 2-gallon ziplock-style freezer bag. Seal using water displacement method and proceed with recipe.

No vacuum-seal bags? Double-bag it.

Lower bag into sous vide bath until roast is fully submerged, and clip to side of water bath container. Cover container with plastic wrap or a lid. 
 
Cook for 18 hours. 
 
Once cooked, chuck roast can be held in sous vide bath for up to 6 hours (24 hours total) without any change in quality. 
 
NOTE: Chuck roast can be cooked sous vide for up to 48 hours. The texture of the beef will change, becoming even more tender with the extended cook time. Our preferred time range remains 18 to 24 hours.

Cook chuck roast sous vide

For long cooks, it’s important to cover your sous vide bath container to reduce evaporation. Use a lid, a cut-up yoga mat, or some high-quality plastic wrap, then let Joule do its thing while you prepare for a feast.

Cover for long cooks

1 hour before chuck roast finishes cooking sous vide, adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to [f 475], with fan on high if using a convection oven. 
 
In a small bowl, combine chopped herbs, 20 g salt, and 20 g pepper. Stir until well combined; set aside.

Preheat oven and prepare herb rub

Remove roast from bag and transfer to a wire rack set inside a 1/2 sheet pan, presentation-side up (with knots on bottom). Transfer cooking juices and aromatics from bag to a 10-inch skillet; set aside. Pat roast dry with paper towels. 
 
In a small bowl, whisk egg white until foamy, about 45 seconds. Using a pastry brush, evenly brush chuck roast on all sides with whipped egg white. 
 
Sprinkle herb rub evenly over roast, coating as much of the meat’s surface as possible, and gently pressing rub into meat to help it adhere.

Coat roast with herb rub

Transfer roast to oven and cook until crust is evenly browned and fragrant, about 12 minutes.

Finish roast in oven

While roast is finishing in the oven, make jus. Set skillet with cooking juices and aromatics over medium-high heat and bring mixture to a boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid has mostly evaporated, and fond has formed on the bottom of the pan and has begun to fry in fat, about 4 minutes. 
 
Add beef stock and bring to a simmer, scraping up fond with a wooden spoon. Cook until mixture is reduced to a saucy consistency, about 6 minutes. 
 
Strain jus through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl or small saucepan. Season with salt and pepper to taste, cover, and keep warm until ready to serve.

Make beef jus (optional)

Transfer roast to cutting board. Remove and discard twine. Using a sharp knife, slice into 1-inch-thick slices. Serve, passing jus at the table.

Slice roast and serve

Chuck roast can be cooked sous vide through Step 5, rapidly chilled in an ice bath, and refrigerated in its bag for up to 5 days. Reheat in a [f 131] sous vide bath for 4 hours before proceeding to Step 6.

Make-ahead and storage

We all know the stories. “The Ugly Duckling.” “The Frog Prince.” “She’s All That.” We can’t help but root for a seemingly homely hero who undergoes a transformation that reveals the true beauty lurking just below the surface. And everyone lives happily ever after.  
 
Our favorite culinary version of that fable is the one that stars the humble beef chuck roast, a cut often overshadowed by its two polished pals, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-every-time-center-cut-tenderloin-roast">tenderloin</a> and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/win-the-holidays-with-herb-crusted-sous-vide-prime-rib-rib-roast">prime rib</a>. Ridiculously inexpensive and often unfairly packaged as low-quality stew beef, chuck is in fact one of the most flavorful <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/cuts">cuts on the cow</a>. It’s a <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/decoding-tough-and-tender-cuts">relatively tough muscle</a>, so it’s got tons of beefy flavor, but it also has a fair amount of connective tissue. The trick is to bring out all that beefy succulence while slowly transforming the tough parts into a tender roast you can serve slice by silky slice.  
 
The best way to turn a chuck roast into a centerpiece worthy of a fairy tale feast is to cook it sous vide. We’ll walk you through the process, including techniques for trimming and trussing—the roast equivalent of removing a pair of oversized glasses and adding a little lipstick—plus <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/presearing-for-sous-vide">presearing</a> for maximum flavor. Once the chuck roast comes out of its tenderizing temperature-controlled bath, we cover it in an herbaceous rub and finish it in a hot oven to get a beautiful crust. Carve it up into generous slices and serve it up to your flabbergasted friends and family, wicked stepsisters, and all.

Herb-Crusted Sous Vide Chuck Roast

Our beef stock is some of the darkest and richest we’ve ever tasted. As with traditional stocks, we roast the bones before cooking to deepen the flavor, and add cow’s feet, which break down during the low and slow cooking process and add body to the stock. (Substitute oxtail for a similar effect.) Using a SousVide Supreme gives us the ultimate temperature control, and unlike other beef stocks that simmer for eight hours or so, we like to cook ours for a full day when time allows.