Beef Tenderloin · Sous-vide

Sous-vide Beef Tenderloin

Timing, temperature, and the cues that decide doneness for beef tenderloin.

3h
Cook Time
130°F / 55°C
Cooking Temperature
0.3 lb / 5 oz / 140 g
Portion Weight
Per adult serving
120-160°F / 50-70°C
Internal Temperature
Rare to Well Done

Step-by-Step Instructions

  1. 1Season tenderloin with salt, pepper, and fresh herbs
  2. 2Vacuum seal or place in zip-lock bag using water displacement method
  3. 3Set sous-vide circulator for desired doneness
  4. 4Check internal temperature reaches 120-160°F / 50-70°C (rare to well done)
  5. 5Cook for 2-4 hours depending on thickness
  6. 6Remove from bag and pat completely dry
  7. 7Heat cast iron skillet over high heat with oil
  8. 8Sear on all sides 30-60 seconds per side for crust
  9. 9Slice and serve immediately

Expert Tips for Sous-vide

  • Longer cooking times break down connective tissue
  • 1 inch: 2 hours, 2 inch: 3-4 hours
  • Add aromatics like garlic, thyme, and rosemary to the bag
  • Ensure proper vacuum seal to prevent water ingress
  • Perfect edge-to-edge doneness with minimal risk of overcooking

Beef Tenderloin Temperature Guide

DonenessTemperatureDescription
Rare120°F / 50°CCool red center, very soft texture
Medium Rare130°F / 55°CWarm red center, tender and juicy
Medium140°F / 60°CWarm pink center, slightly firmer texture
Medium Well150°F / 65°CLight pink center, firm texture
Well Done160°F / 70°CBrown throughout, firm texture

Beef Tenderloin Safety Guidelines

Important food safety practices when handling and cooking beef tenderloin.

Cook to proper internal temperature

Use food thermometer

Remember

When in doubt, use a food thermometer. It's the only reliable way to ensure your beef tenderloin is safely cooked and delicious.

Other Ways to Cook Beef Tenderloin

Pan-Searing

Pan-Searing Beef Tenderloin

Cook Time
10min
Weight Range
2-6 lb / 0.9-2.7 kg
Pan Temperature
Medium-High
300-350°F / 150-175°C
Internal Temperature
120-160°F / 50-70°C
Rare to Well Done
Read the guide

Roasting

Roasting Beef Tenderloin

Cook Time
30min - 1h30min
2-6 lb / 1-2.5 kg
Weight Range
2-6 lb / 1-2.5 kg
Oven Temperature
425°F / 220°C
Internal Temperature
120-160°F / 50-70°C
Rare to Well Done
Read the guide

Keep Exploring

Other categories

Cooking guides across other food categories

Category

Poultry

Chicken, turkey, duck with safe cooking guidelines

Category

Seafood

Fresh fish and shellfish cooking guides

Category

Vegetables

Healthy vegetable cooking techniques

Tenderloin is the most expensive cut you can buy and the easiest to ruin. Almost no fat means almost no margin. Sous-vide turns the cut's weakness into its strength. Set the bath to 130°F, pull at the timer, sear for 30 seconds a side. Edge-to-edge medium-rare with zero risk.

I · Why This Method

Why It Works

Tenderloin (the psoas major) is the leanest, most tender muscle on the carcass, and the least forgiving. There's no marbling to mask a degree of over-cooking, no connective tissue that needs time to break down, no fat cap to render. A hot pan will overshoot the centre of a 2-inch filet before the surface develops a proper crust. Sous-vide solves both problems: the bath holds the interior at exactly your target doneness while you do the searing as a separate, decoupled step. It is the only method that respects what tenderloin actually is, a tender, lean muscle that wants careful temperature control, not heroic heat.

II · Targets

Time & Temperature

Tenderloin's doneness ceiling is lower than any other steak cut. Above 135°F it starts to dry visibly, and above 140°F it's no different from a roast cooked in dry oven heat. Aim low and trust the bath.

122°F / 50°C
Rare

Deep red, cool-warm, very soft. Below USDA's 145°F whole-muscle guidance, see FAQ on sous-vide safety.

130°F / 54°C
Medium-rare (recommended)

Warm pink centre, just-set bite. The default for tenderloin and the temperature most steakhouses serve.

134°F / 57°C
Medium-rare plus

Slightly firmer; the upper bound for tenderloin before texture starts to suffer. Above this the cut's lean character dominates.

1 in / 2.5 cm filet
45 min – 1.5 hours

Tenderloin is already tender; you don't need long holds. The floor is pasteurisation, not collagen breakdown.

2 in / 5 cm filet (Châteaubriand)
1.5 – 2 hours

The classic centre-cut preparation. Sears beautifully.

Whole tenderloin (centre-cut, ~2 lb)
2 – 3 hours

Tie before bagging so the roast holds its shape. A whole roast is uniquely well-suited to sous-vide because there's no carryover risk.

Maximum hold (any thickness)
4 hours at 130°F

Past 4 hours the already-delicate fibres start to soften past steak into pot-roast territory. Tenderloin goes mushy faster than strip.

III · Doneness

How to Tell It's Done

  • ✓ Probe-thermometer reading at the bag's centre holds within 1°F of your set temperature for at least 20 minutes
  • ✓ The meat feels distinctly firmer than raw, like the soft pad of your palm at medium-rare
  • ✓ Juices in the bag look pale rosé, not dark red, dark red means under-time
  • ✓ The bag pulls in around the meat as dissolved air escapes, not bulges with trapped gas
  • ✓ After searing, the surface is mahogany brown and the meat slices cleanly without dragging

IV · Kit

Equipment That Matters

Immersion circulator

Any model with ±0.1°C accuracy. Tenderloin is unforgiving enough that a circulator that drifts by 2°F can push it past medium-rare over a 3-hour cook.

8+ quart container with a lid

A whole tenderloin needs the room. A lidded stockpot or polycarbonate Cambro beats a bare pot, evaporative cooling matters over a long cook.

Vacuum sealer (preferred for whole roasts)

For filets, water-displacement in a zip-lock bag is fine. For a whole tenderloin, vacuum-sealing prevents the bag from floating and gives more even heat contact along the length of the roast.

Butcher's twine

For a whole tenderloin, tie at 1-inch intervals before bagging so the roast holds its shape. The tapered "tail" end can also be folded under and tied for even thickness.

Cast-iron or carbon-steel pan, or a propane torch

Tenderloin's surface has less fat to brown than any other steak, so the sear must be hotter or longer than for strip. A propane torch (sweep from 6 inches above) handles a whole roast better than a pan does.

V · Troubleshooting

When Something Goes Wrong

No crust after searing
The surface was wet, or the pan wasn't hot enough. Pat aggressively with paper towels, twice, after pulling from the bag. For a whole roast, rest the dried tenderloin on a wire rack in the freezer for 15 minutes to drop surface temperature before searing. A propane torch with a sweeping motion 6 inches above the meat builds crust faster than any pan.
Mushy or pâté-like texture
Held too long in the bath. Tenderloin is delicate to start with and accelerates the breakdown faster than other cuts, 4 hours at 130°F is the upper limit, not the target. Aim for the minimum time that achieves pasteurisation.
Dry, woolly interior after the sear
The bath was hotter than necessary, or you set it expecting carryover that never happened. With a 30-second per side sear, carryover is negligible. Set the bath to your actual target temperature, 130°F for medium-rare, and accept no margin.
Whole roast cooks unevenly along its length
The tail end of a whole tenderloin tapers and finishes faster than the head. Either trim the tail off (save for stir-fry or stroganoff) before sous-vide, or fold the tail underneath and tie the roast to one uniform thickness.

VI · Pitfalls

Common Mistakes

Buying the wrong end of the tenderloin

A whole tenderloin has three sections, the head (chain side, thick, slightly tougher), the centre (uniform cylinder, ideal for Châteaubriand), and the tail (tapered, cooks faster, perfect for tournedos). For a serve-whole presentation, ask the butcher for centre-cut only. Supermarket "tenderloin roast" packages often include the tail, which throws off cook timing.

Salting before the bath

Salt draws moisture out of the steak in the bag, leaving a slick, slightly cured exterior that resists searing. Salt right before the sear, or dry-brine 24 hours ahead, uncovered in the fridge, and pat dry before bagging.

Holding past 4 hours

Tenderloin starts mushy. Past 4 hours at 130°F, the muscle fibres slacken further and the cut loses its bite entirely. This is the one cut where the sous-vide myth of "hold as long as you want" is categorically wrong.

Sous-vide and then resting

A sous-vide steak has already equilibrated to its target temperature. There is no carryover, no juice redistribution to wait for. Slice and serve. Resting only lets the crust go soft.

Treating sous-vide as a substitute for quality

Sous-vide makes a good tenderloin perfect. It cannot make a poor tenderloin great. The cut's signature is its tenderness and the clean, mineral beef flavour, both depend on the animal and the ageing. Buy USDA Choice or better; the technique cannot compensate for the source.

VII · Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Is sous-vide tenderloin safe at 130°F when the USDA recommends 145°F?

Yes, with sufficient time. The USDA's 145°F number is an instant-kill threshold; sous-vide reaches the same level of safety through time-at-temperature pasteurisation. The USDA's own Appendix A tables for lethality performance show that 130°F held over about 90 minutes delivers a 6.5-log reduction in Salmonella, equivalent to the 145°F instant standard. A whole-muscle tenderloin has bacteria only on the surface, so a proper sear sterilises the only risky part. For immune-compromised diners, cook to 145°F instead.

How long can I leave a tenderloin in the bath?

For tenderloin specifically, four hours at 130°F is the upper limit. The cut starts tender, so longer holds don't improve texture the way they would for chuck, they degrade it. If your schedule slips, take the bagged roast out of the bath and into ice water until you're ready, then reheat in the bath for 15 minutes before searing.

Can I skip the sear?

You can, but you shouldn't. Tenderloin sous-vide without a sear is grey and texturally one-note, the Maillard crust is what compensates for the cut's mild flavour. If you don't want a smoky kitchen, use a propane torch outdoors, or finish the roast under a screaming-hot broiler for 60–90 seconds per side.

Whole tenderloin or pre-cut filets, which sous-vides better?

A whole centre-cut roast is the more dramatic dish, holds heat better, and sears more cleanly. Filets cook faster and let you mix doneness preferences for different diners. For a dinner party of 6+, the whole roast wins on both presentation and effort. For a weeknight steak for two, filets are simpler.

Should I wrap the tenderloin in bacon?

The classic filet-mignon-en-bardé treatment exists because tenderloin has no fat cap. Wrapping in bacon adds fat and flavour to the exterior during a pan or oven cook. Under sous-vide, the bacon doesn't crisp, it cooks through limp and adds nothing. If you want bacon, wrap and crisp it as a finishing step after the sear, not in the bag.

Continue reading: the full method notes

What tenderloin is

Tenderloin is the psoas major, the inner-hip muscle that runs along the spine on the underside of the short loin and sirloin. Because the muscle does almost no work supporting the animal, it never develops the connective tissue that gives most beef its chew, and it carries almost no intramuscular fat. The result is the most tender cut on the animal and one of the leanest: a 4-ounce serving has about 7 grams of fat, against ribeye’s 25.

Two things follow from this. First, tenderloin is unusually forgiving on the tenderness axis, you cannot really make it tough by mis-cooking it. Second, it is unusually unforgiving on every other axis. There’s no fat to render and lubricate the bite, no marbling to mask a degree of over-doneness, no connective tissue whose breakdown gives you a flavour bonus over a long cook. Get it wrong and you have expensive, lean, dry meat with no recovery path.

Why sous-vide is the right method

The traditional dry-heat methods, pan-searing, roasting in a hot oven, grilling, all rely on the steak’s fat to buffer the temperature gradient between the seared surface and the medium-rare centre. Tenderloin doesn’t have that buffer. By the time the surface of a 2-inch filet has built a proper crust in a 500°F pan, the quarter-inch under the crust has passed medium and the centre is brushing medium-rare from the wrong direction.

Sous-vide decouples the two. The bath cooks the interior to the exact target you want over an hour or two while you do absolutely nothing. The sear then runs for 30 to 60 seconds per side, long enough to build crust, short enough that the interior never moves. The doneness gradient on a sous-vide-then-seared tenderloin is the thinnest of any home-cooked beef preparation, which is the single specific reason this method is worth the equipment cost for this specific cut.

On the sear

Tenderloin’s lean exterior has less to brown than any other beef cut. The Maillard reaction needs sugar and amino acids; fat provides neither directly, but the rendered fat in the pan from a fattier steak helps conduct heat into the surface and accelerates the browning chemistry. With a lean surface, the pan must compensate, hotter, drier, with more added fat.

Three options work. A cast-iron pan over high heat with a tablespoon of refined-avocado oil or beef tallow handles 2-inch filets. For a whole roast, the pan is the wrong tool, you can’t get the curved surface evenly contacted. A propane torch swept from 6 inches above builds crust on every contour. A broiler under the highest setting, with the rack 2 inches below the element, is the third option and gives a flatter crust than a torch.

In every case, dry the meat aggressively first. Sous-vide-cooked tenderloin comes out of the bag with surface moisture that will not evaporate fast enough during a 60-second sear; it must be patted off with paper towels, twice. For a whole roast, 15 minutes uncovered on a rack in the freezer drops the surface temperature further so the sear can run longer without warming the interior past 130°F.

On the cut

When you buy “tenderloin” you can be buying any of three things, all sold under the same name. A whole tenderloin (PSMO, peeled, side muscle on) is the entire 4–6 pound muscle, including the head, the centre, and the tail. A centre-cut roast is just the uniform middle section, trimmed of the side muscle (the “chain”) and the head, and is what you want for Châteaubriand. A filet or tournedos is a 1–2 inch round cross-section, usually cut from the centre.

For sous-vide, the centre-cut roast is the easiest to work with, uniform thickness, predictable timing. Filets are the simplest for a weeknight cook. A whole PSMO including the tail is a great butcher’s bargain but requires either trimming the tail off before sous-vide or folding and tying it so the roast cooks evenly along its length.

Sources & further reading