Sous Vide: Getting Started Class

ChefSteps is a team of chefs, writers, and food lovers who develop recipes, techniques, and guides to help people cook better at home.

ChefSteps

Digital instant-read thermometer

Large pot(s)

Baking/Cooling rack(s)

1-gallon Ziplock-style freezer bag(s)

Joule® Turbo Sous Vide

Strip steak(s)

Olive oil

Butter

Kosher salt

Garlic

Thyme

Red wine

Black pepper

Heat sous vide water bath to [c 57].

Want to give sous vide a try but don’t have Joule Turbo yet? You can give the method a whirl with a digital thermometer and a pot on the stove.
{activity:3uyfDnjH1EITPFXUJpudzA}

Get easy, perfect steak or salmon tonight! Here's how to cook sous vide without any special equipment.

Cook Sous Vide Tonight: Stovetop Method

Heat sous vide bath

Want your steak super rare? Brown all the way? Hey, it’s your dinner, friend. Here’s a helpful guide for getting meat (plus vegetables, fruit, and fish) exactly the way you want it.
{activity:2IRR4PwQGl04NQ1C0hbLFo}

This is our guide to preparing your favorite foods—from juicy steak to tender vegetables—exactly the way you like them.

Sous Vide Time and Temperature Guide

As you like it

Pour enough oil into a pan to coat. Warm pan over high heat. With a paper towel, pat the steaks dry. 

When pan is hot, add steaks and sear quickly on each side. Turn off heat and transfer steaks to a cooling rack or chilled plate.

Presear steaks

Place steak and butter cubes in a ziplock-style bag. Seal bag using water displacement method or vacuum sealer. Lower bag into sous vide bath until steaks are fully submerged, and clip to side of water bath container. Cook for 1 hour. 

If you’re using the stovetop method, check your thermometer every once in a while to make sure the temperature stays at [c 57].

Cook steak sous vide

Transfer steaks to a plate and season one side with salt. Reserve any juice in the bag.

Return pan to high heat. Add steaks back to pan, seasoned side up. Sear quickly, then flip and season other side. Cook until crispy, brown edges begin to form.

Remove steaks from pan.

Sear steaks

Return the pan to high heat, and add reserved steak juices from the plastic bags (from Step 4). Bring to a simmer and add garlic and thyme. Allow aromatics to brown slightly, agitating pan to avoid burning or sticking.

Add red wine, then butter. Stir sauce, cooking until wine reduces and takes on a nice, somewhat thick consistency.

Remove sauce from heat; strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Season as desired.

Salt

Prepare sauce

Slice steak into equal pieces. Spoon sauce on top and serve as desired—we like ours over <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/smashed-potatoes">Smashed Potatoes</a>.
{activity:3SwTGxw4ucj5viqrxqgrTM}

A full steak dinner recipe that is delicious and foolproof—make it tonight!

Sous Vide Steak With Red Wine Sauce and Smashed Potatoes

Serve!

Making a steak is easy. Making a great steak? Well that’s another matter. As any chef or grillmaster will tell you, it’s all about controlling the heat in order to reach that sweet spot where the meat is tender, juicy, and full of flavor, neither under- nor overcooked.Of course, every beef eater has a strong opinion about where, exactly, that sweet spot lies. Hardcore carnivores will tell you beef should be bright red and bloody, while more cautious types insist on a conservative medium-well. Whatever your preference, cooking steak sous vide allows you to precisely control how your meat is heated, with very little effort. The upshot: great steak is no longer the exclusive domain of professionals and obsessives.Here, we walk you through the steps to cooking a steak using an improvised sous vide setup involving nothing more than a digital thermometer, some plastic bags, and a pot on the stove. (Of course, if you’ve already invested in a <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/joule">Joule Turbo</a>, you can use that instead.) We begin by quickly searing the meat, then cooking it in water heated to [c 57], which yields the sort of pink-but-not-too-pink, medium-rare steak that tends to please a crowd. We then give the beef the French bistro treatment, finishing it in a rich red wine sauce flavored with thyme and fattened up with plenty of butter. The result: a restaurant-level meat treatment that’s simple to create and impossible to stop eating—no fancy equipment required.

Simple Sous Vide Steak With Red Wine Sauce