Sous Vide Pork Tenderloin Recipe + Temperature Chart

Last Updated on October 16, 2023 by Sabrina Currie

Sous vide pork tenderloin is lean, tender, juicy and SO EASY! This is the best sous vide pork tenderloin recipe with time and temperature guide and I guarantee it! Sous vide cooking prevents overcooking every single time and it's easier than you might think. With just 5 ingredients, this is as easy as it gets. (gf, df)

Still not sure? I will walk you through this recipe to prove that it's the best way to cook pork tenderloin. Once you've mastered the recipe, I bet you'll want to try other meat and seafood cooked this way too. The printable time and temperature chart will make it easy to try lots of precision cooked recipes.

Looking for some great side dishes for your pork? Check out these top 50 side dishes. While geared for flank steak, another lean cut, they work really well for sliced tenderloin too. (Serving this to guests? Check out this article on how to set a proper dinner table and the differences between a butter knife vs dinner knife!)

What To Serve With Pork Tenderloin

Try serving this pork tenderloin with Easy Pickled Blackberries or Blackberry Barbecue Sauce. For side dishes, I love Fresh Medjool Dates and Carrot Salad, Apple Walnut Salad or Apple Kale Slaw and the creamy and rich potato tartiflette.

Mediterranean Cauliflower Salad or Warm Marinated Olives are great starters for this recipe. Steamed green beans, Honey Sriracha Brussels Sprouts or Hot Honey Carrots are tasty sides for this sous vide pork.

Ingredients

With just pork, thyme, salt and pepper, the slow and gentle cooking of a precision cooker brings out all the great flavor. You can add a little oil to a hot pan and brush with barbecue sauce for extra flavor at the end if you like.

Pork Tenderloin - This, plus a little freshly ground black pepper and sea salt are really the only ingredients you truly need for this easy, juicy pork tenderloin recipe.

Fresh Herbs - Fresh thyme and rosemary add some more tasty flavors but you can easily swap the herbs for many others like fresh parsley, basil or sage. If you don't have fresh herbs, you can use a 1-2 teaspoons of dried herbs instead.

Blackberry BBQ Sauce - I love the combination of pork with a fruit based sauce (pork roast and apple sauce anyone?). Adding a little barbecue sauce or dry rub after the sous vide process, helps get a nice caramelized color or golden brown exterior from a good sear at the end. It is optional but I highly recommend it. See below for a quick cheat if you're short on time.

Substitutions + Variations

Flavortown - Change it up with more! Load up a ziploc bag with your favorite fresh herbs, fresh garlic cloves, a few chili flakes or apply a dry rub to the pork for great flavor. Continue to remove as much air from the bag as you can and cook as directed.

Cheaters BBQ sauce - No time to make the blackberry BBQ sauce from scratch? Take a cup of your favourite store-bought sauce and toss it in the blender with 1 cup of blackberries to kick things up a notch and impress your friends.

Step By Step Photos

You will need a sous vide wand or machine. I have a sous vide machine that easily clips onto the side of a pot and I've been really happy with it.

Step 1. Fill a pot, clip the sous vide machine, (aka precision cooker or immersion circulator) to the side and make sure the water is high at the level indicated on your machine. Set the temperature and time according to your units instructions and let it start to preheat.

Step 2. Add pork tenderoin, herbs, salt and pepper to a sous vide bag. This can be a ziploc bag as shown here, or vacuum seal bags as shown in step 3. If using a zip top bag, squeeze all the air out after adding the ingredients. Letting the bottom of the bag submerge into the water will help push the air up and out. (Known in chef world as the water displacement method.) Press the seal closed once the air is mostly out.

Step 3. If using a vacuum sealer, simply add all the ingredients to the bag and vacuum seal shut.

Step 4. Place sous vide bag in the preheated hot water bath. If there is a bit of air left in and it is floating, clip the top of the bag to the edge of the pan or pot so the air comes up and the pork stays under the water.

Step 5. Once the time is up, carefully remove the pork from the sous vide cooker. Let it sit 1-2 minutes and then take it out of the bag and place it on a cutting board. Slice and serve while warm or carry on to the next steps for more ways to serve it including the reverse sear method.

How to finish precision-cooked meat

1. There are a few ways you can finish sous vide meat. It is delicious on it's own. Simply slice and serve as is along side potatoes and veggies or on top of a salad with feta and yogurt dressing.
2. You can serve it with a pan sauce. Add any juices from the pork cooking bag to a pan of sautéed shallots, garlic and thyme. Bring to a simmer and add a splash of white wine or apple cider vinegar (about 1-2 tablespoons). Reduce the wine or vinegar and then turn off the heat and stir in a tablespoon of butter. Spoon it over the sliced tenderloin for an elevated dinner.

3. Alternatively, (and most popular) you can finish it by reverse searing. Heat a grill or cast iron pan over medium high heat and give it a quick sear for an appealing looking finish and a little extra flavor. For this presentation, I gave it some appetizing grill marks on my grill preheated to it's hottest setting (approx 600'F).

For demonstration purposes in the main photos, I didn't want to hide what it looked like so I served my homemade blackberry BBQ sauce underneath. You can also brush the sauce right on while grilling and let it get sticky.

My family loves to dip their pork in the blackberry barbecue sauce!

Love cooking different cuts of meat? Check out 40 Best Flank Steak Recipes!

Sous Vide Pork Time and Temperature Chart

To help you make this and other sous vide recipes, I've made this sous vide time and temperature guide. Bookmark this page or print it out and use this as a guide with other sous vide recipes! (copyright Sabrina Currie 2021) Once you start cooking sous vide, it's hard to stop!

(Love printables? Check out my free printable meal planner and grocery list!)

Why use this cooking method

There are two main benefits to this. First, your meat cooks to the desired temperature easily, without fail. I love my pork tenderloin done to an internal temperature of 140'F and with this method, I nail it every time. This Anova sous vide machine is highly rated and works really well.

Second, you can leave it sitting at the desired temperature for a long period of time once cooked. (Sous vide tenderloin pork works especially well because it is both lean and tender making it prone to drying out if cooked conventionally or left sitting too long.)

Say you're having a party and your guests are late, or you're enjoying happy hour a little longer than planned. You don't need to worry! Your meat is staying absolutely perfect for another hour, or two or three or even longer.

How long does pork tenderloin take to cook?

This recipe (and pork tenderloin in general) will take 1 hour but you can make it ahead and let it stay hot until you're ready to serve it.

Because sous vide cooks at a lower temperature, meat usually takes longer than it would in a frying pan or BBQ. On the flip side, this is completely hands off cooking time and it can stay hot and ready without overcooking.

What else can I cook this way?

Almost any protein or vegetable you'd cook for dinner work well this way. Lean proteins benefit the most from this gently cooking. I love to make sous vide pork loin, sous vide pork chops, and even pork roast. All lamb works excellent in this as does beef tenderloin, striploin and sirloin. Check out the sous vide guide for lots of great cooking ideas.

Expert tips

Keep dinner warm - After the pork has cooked for an hour, you can continue to let the pork hold at the same temperature in the sous vide water bath for another hour or even 2-3 if you need, without compromising the quality and without risk of overcooking the pork.

Don't add oil - Sous vide works excellent for lean cuts. It works great for vegetables too, but unlike frying, oil doesn't make it better. Best to use herbs, garlic and spices during sous vide or while marinating but save butter and oil for finishing the dish AFTER it's finished in the sous vide machine. Or better yet, enjoy how delicious this can make your food without any oil at all!

FAQ's

Pin It To Save For Later

Sous vide cooking is easy and gives great results every time. Save this flavorful pork tenderloin recipe to Facebook or Pinterest to make again!

More Main Course Recipes

More delicious, family favorite main course recipes for every night of the week!

This sous vide pork tenderloin has consistently good flavor and is excellent sliced and served on its own. I hope you give it a try, and if you do, let me know below how you like it and what brand of sous vide machine you have!

If you have any questions or comments, you can find me on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. I try to answer any recipe related questions quickly as I know you might be in the middle of making it.

Also check out my FREE PRINTABLE meal planner to make menu planning and grocery shopping a breeze and my shopping guide. And if you like this recipe, I would love it if you give it a star rating in the recipe card.

Cheers and happy cooking, Friends! Sabrina

📖 Recipe

Sous Vide Pork Tenderloin Recipe + Temperature Chart

Sous vide is the very best way to cook pork tenderloin EVERY time! Serve up juicy and tender pork tenderloin seasoned as it is or make blackberry bbq sauce to drizzle over or baste during a quick sear on the grill. See post above for printable sous vide chart.

4.95 from 56 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dinner, Main, Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: sous vide cooking time chart, sous vide pork, sous vide pork temperature chart, Sous vide pork tenderloin, sous vide tenderloin

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour

Total Time: 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 servings

Calories: 230kcal

Author: Sabrina Currie

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 lb Pork tenderloin
• ▢ 5-10 Thyme sprigs or ½ teaspoon dried thyme rosemary or savory are good substitutes
• ▢ 1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
• ▢ ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ▢ 1 tablespoon olive oil use this for brushing over before searing or grilling to finish.
• ▢ ½ c Blackberry sauce (link to recipe and cheater version below)

Instructions

• Fill your heat safe pot or container so that it's at least 6 inches deep, attach your sous vide machine and set to your desired temperature to preheat.

  135' F is rare, 140' F is about medium rare and what these pictures show. If you like it more well done you can go up to 150'F. I do not recommend cooking it any hotter or your pork will suffer.
• Season your pork tenderloin generously with salt and pepper and top with thyme. Place meat into a sealable plastic bag and remove all air. To do this you can use a vacuum sealer or displace the air by submerging the bag in water slowly, until the bag is airless and sucked flat to the pork and itself, then seal.
• Clip bag to the side of your pot so it doesn't float into the sous vide machine. Set timer for 1 hour and walk away! This is a great time to take a rest or finish the other parts of your meal.
• When you're ready to serve, slice the pork into slices as thick or thin as you like and serve while warm.
• ***Optional: If you'd like to add a sear to finish the pork, preheat a pan or outdoor grill (BBQ) to high. Take the pork out of the hot water bath, remove the herb sprigs and pat dry with a little paper towel.

  Brush lightly all over with olive oil then place on pan or grill to sear. (Don't leave it too long on any one side, you simply want some browning or grill marks.) Turn, basting with barbecue sauce if you like, until each side has some golden brown or lightly charred marks.

  Place it on a plate and let it rest about 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Notes

After the pork has cooked for an hour, you can continue to let the pork hold at the same temperature for another hour or even 2 if you need, without compromise to the quality and doneness.

Tip: Try brushing your bbq sauce on before grilling to let it caramelize. It works great and tastes even better!

Nutrition

Calories: 230kcal | Carbohydrates: 15g | Protein: 24g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 74mg | Sodium: 1008mg | Potassium: 540mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 143IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 25mg | Iron: 2mg

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