
Sous vide is a way of cooking that is gaining popularity and many people are looking into it as a means of getting more tender meat with less effort.
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To have beef for sous vide, it is important to know what cuts work well with this technique and how long they should be cooked for.
In this post, we will discuss some of the most common beef cuts that are ideal for sous vide and the tips to choose beef for this French cooking method.
How to choose beef for sous vides?
The advantage of a sous vide method is that the food retains its natural juices and flavor because it never comes into contact with air or other elements like grease.
Therefore, it is even better to buy a good cut of beef for sous vide so that your dish will end up with a restaurant-like quality.
Below we suggest the most useful tips to choose beef for sous vides:
1. Buy a fresh cut of grass-fed beef
Grass-fed beef is superior to commercial grain-fed beef.
This kind of beef is healthier because it doesn’t contain antibiotics or hormones.
It also tastes better and has a more tender texture when cooked.
Therefore, if possible, buy a fresh cut of grass-fed beef for sous vide and you will have the best dish come out from the water bath.
2. Choose a well-marbled or lean cut of beef instead of a fatty cut
Another tip to choose beef for sous vide is that a well-marbled or lean cut of beef works better in this case.
The reason is that the meat doesn’t contact the surrounding environment like air, fire, or oil so the fat is not rendered while cooking.
A fatty cut of beef is better for a roasting or grilling recipe.
Meanwhile, you don’t have to worry about a dry dish from a lean beef cut because the sous vide method helps keep the natural juice inside the cut of meat.
6 best beef for sous vide
Sous vide is a popular cooking method that has been used for years.
Normally, this technique features high-quality cuts of beef.
Here are our suggestions for the six best beef for sous vide:
1. Ribeye steak
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Ribeye steak is a good cut of beef that is often served in high-end restaurants.
It is a boneless steak cut that comes from the rib section.
Ribeye steak is tender and juicy with a full flavor profile that can be cooked in a variety of ways, including sous vide.
Cooking a ribeye steak with a sous vide method will result in a tender dish with a juicy texture that can satisfy even the pickiest eater.
2. Filet mignon
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Another tender cut that can melt in your mouth if properly cooked is filet mignon.
It is a smaller cut that is taken from the tenderloin, which is known as the leanest and most tender cut of beef.
Beef filet mignon is also one of the most expensive and desirable cuts of beef that often appear in high-end restaurants.
The heated water cooks the meat for hours to result in tender and juicy meat.
3. T-bone steak
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T-bone steak is a good and versatile cut of beef that can be cooked in many recipes.
It has a T-shaped bone running through the cut, hence the name.
The perfect marbling fat content makes this cut very juicy and flavorful when cooked.
T-bone steak is one of the top-quality cuts of beef so it is also sold at a higher price than the average cut.
4. Strip steak
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Strip steak is a more affordable steak cut but it is also a delicious cut of meat that is well-marbled and tender in texture.
It is also known as New York strip steak or strip loin steak, so you can look for this cut in a local butcher shop or grocery store under these different names.
This cut is a good choice for sous vide because it will become tender without needing to be cooked with dry heat like in a roasting or grilling recipe, but submerged in warm water for a long time instead.
5. Flank steak
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Flank steak can also be a good candidate for sous vide.
Although this cut is typically used for stir-frying because it is relatively lean and tender when being quickly cooked.
A whole cut of flank steak is vacuumed in an air-tight package and submerged in water at a regulated temperature for hours until it is fully cooked.
When serving sous vide flank steak, cut it into thin slices against the grain for the best texture.
6. Prime rib
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Prime rib is one of the primal beef cuts that every home cook or professional chef desires.
This bone-in cut is very flavorful as it comes from the rib section with a lot of flavors from the bones and can reach the fall-off-the-bone tenderness when cooked for hours like in the sous vide recipe.
The bottom line
We have compiled many cuts of beef that are perfect for sous vide.
You can choose an affordable cut like strip steak or flank steak, or other high-quality beef cuts like ribeye, filet mignon, T-bone steak, or prime rib to experiment with this technique.
We hope that this post has given you some insight into how to choose beef for sous vide and the best cuts of meat that you can try all in turn.
If you have any questions, we would love to hear from you!