Steak Sous Vide - Butter or Olive Oil? - The Taste of Montana (2024)

FAQs

Is it better to cook steaks in butter or olive oil? ›

Much to our surprise steak cooked with olive oil brought out the natural flavors of meat and helped maintain a desirable texture much better than butter.

Here at Sous Vide Tools we often like to add a small amount of butter to the bag and find that for best results, flavoured butter works really well to add a little something extra during the cooking process. Our preference is to place butter into the bag itself, rather than on top of the product.

Chefsteps have suggested adding butter and olive oil to the bag with steaks in several of their recipes ^{2 3} and guides ⁴. Dave Arnold has previously suggested putting butter in the bag when cooking sous vide. Modernist Cuisine adds suet (fat) to their sous vide steak recipe.

Q: Can I add aromatics, like herbs or alliums, to the sous vide bag? Yes, you can. I like to add thyme or rosemary sprigs, along with sliced shallots or garlic cloves, to the bags with my steaks during cooking. Adding the same aromatics to the pan as you sear the steaks will bolster that flavor.

Many people enjoy putting butter on their meats or vegetables during the final stages of grilling. Butter brushed onto a thick steak can help give the crust a more intense flavor.

Taste. As far as taste goes, some people say that butter has a richer flavor while others find that olive oil tastes fresher.

While you may use butter to pan-sear meat, it doesn't work as well with sous vide. During the slow-cooking process of sous vide, butter doesn't absorb into the meat. Instead, the butter absorbs the flavor of the meat, making the final dish less flavorful.

So, while it's certainly very difficult to overcook your food using sous vide, to say that it's impossible is a little bit of an overstatement. Just remember that while you technically can't 'overcook' your food, the quality could start to decline if it's left to cook for a lot longer than is recommended.

A good example of this is flank steak or sirloin. Both cuts can be just heated through and served, but extended cooking can tenderize them slightly more, resulting in a much more tender steak. Most of these cuts can benefit from a 5 to 10 hour time in the sous vide bath.

You should select a different cut of steak. A long trip in the sous vide bath is meant to break down connective tissue and tenderize meats. Flank steak is very lean, and inherently tough, so there is little connective tissue to break down, hence is stays tough.

What is the best temperature to sous vide steak? ›

It may not be the most voluminous cut, but flat iron steak is one of the best pieces to sous vide, thanks to a prime balance of tender muscle meat speckled with rich pieces of fat. Fine Cooking calls this slice — also known as top blade steak — a relatively tender piece of meat.

Best Oil for Steak

When cooking steak in cast iron skillets, you want to use oils with a high smoke point like peanut, canola, grapeseed, and avocado oil. These oils all have smoke points over 400 degrees Fahrenheit that can withstand the high heat needed to cook steak.

Now, before you accuse restaurants of butter sabotage, let's talk about the "tenderizer" effect. The fat in the butter can help soften the meats' protein fibers, resulting in a more tender steak. It's like giving your steak a spa day, minus the fluffy robes and cucumbers on the eyes.

Chefs love to make savory dishes with butter, but at home, you may want to stick to oil when preparing your pan for sautéeing and cooking. Butter can easily brown and even burn if you're cooking at high heat, which may be the case when searing a piece of meat, sautéeing vegetables, or cooking down leafy greens.

The vegetable oil has a higher smoke point. You can add that great butter for flavor at the end! Check the temperature of your meat before you transfer the skillet to the oven. If the filet mignon is within about 5-10 degrees of your desired temperature, you may need even less than 3 minutes in the oven.