Sous Vide Pork Tenderloin Recipe (+ Mustard BBQ Sauce)

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Want to make the juiciest pork tenderloin sous vide style? You’ve got it! This step-by-step guide will teach you how to sous vide pork tenderloin – mustard BBQ sauce included! It’s so delicious. Let’s make it…

Today you’ll learn:

• The best cook time and temp for juicy pork tenderloin sous vide
• How to make a delicious sauce for pork
• How to sous vide pork tenderloin from frozen
• Flavor pairings and wine pairings for pork tenderloin
• Sauces for sous vide pork dishes

What’s sous vide pork tenderloin like?

Lean pork tenderloin cooked sous vide style turns out tender, very easy to cut, and very easy to chew.

One reason I love this recipe is that it’s so simple to sous vide pork tenderloin frozen. It just requires a little more time while cooking in the sous vide bath. I’ll teach you how at the end of the recipe the right sous vide pork tenderloin temperature for cooking it from frozen.

Ingredients for sous vide pork tenderloin

This recipe will show you how to sous vide one pound pork tenderloins. This recipe is for 4 servings of 1lb tenderloin each. That’s a lot, so scale it up or down as needed.

For seasonings, it’s simple: garlic, salt, and pepper go in the bag with the pork. Then to finish it on a cast iron skillet on the stove, you’ll need olive oil, butter, and a little fresh chopped parsley to plate it.

In the printable pork tenderloin, sous vide recipe at the bottom of this post, you’ll also find detailed instructions on how to make my yellow mustard barbecue sauce. It has just the perfect amount of sweetness and tang. It’s similar to a Carolina style barbecue sauce.

For the sauce, you’ll need yellow mustard, brown sugar, honey, apple cider vinegar, chili powder, chipotle powder, onion powder, and garlic salt.

Can you sous vide in-store packaging?

So many people ask me about sous viding from store packing. If you’re curious, can you sous vide pork tenderloin in packages provided by the store, my answer is: please don’t!

It’s not the same as making your own bag with the vacuum sealer. Sometimes there are extra materials included in the package that you don’t want to sous vide with the meat. Plus, you want to season it before cooking. So transfer pork to a ziplock or vacuum seal bag for sous vide cooking.

Try this sous vide pork tenderloin recipe

Step 1.  Prep. Preheat sous vide machine to 140ºF (or preferred temperature according to pork tenderloin cook time and temp chart). While the sous vide bath preheats, season the pork all over with garlic, salt, and pepper.

Sous vide it. Vacuum seal pork tenderloin and drop the bag in the sous vide bath at 140ºF for 2 1/2 hours.

Step 2.  Make sauce. While pork cooks, make the yellow mustard BBQ sauce. Melt the butter for the sauce in a saucepan on medium heat. Add yellow mustard and stir. Reduce heat to medium-low and add the remaining ingredients. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring regularly.

Step 3. Ice bath. When pork is done cooking, remove pork tenderloin from the hot water and transfer it to an ice bath for 2 minutes (optional).

You can skip an ice bath if you’re finishing the pork right away, but I prefer to always do an ice bath if I have a spare couple of minutes. Why? Because I want the pork to cool down before searing it. That way it doesn’t heat up too much on the inside, and cook to a higher temperature like medium-well or well.

So an ice bath is definitely a good idea for sous vide meal prep if you’re going to refrigerate or freeze sous vide pork tenderloin to finish it later.

 Step 4. Sear. To finish sous vide pork tenderloin in a cast-iron skillet, remove pork from the vacuum sealer bag and pat dry with a paper towel.

 Heat a large cast-iron skillet to medium-high. Add olive oil to the pan. Once oil is hot and shiny, add pork tenderloin. Sear pork until each side is browned, rotating regularly to get an even crust. If garlic starts to burn, add butter to the pan.

Step 5. Rest. Let pork rest on a cutting board for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing. Plate and serve with yellow mustard BBQ sauce and a sprinkle of parsley.

The best pork tenderloin sous vide temp

My preference? Cook pork at a lower temperature, around 137-140 degrees F for rare or medium-rare pork tenderloin.

The reason being, if you finish it with heat in a cast-iron skillet (or broiler, or on the grill) after sous vide cooking, it will pick up more heat in that final step.

How long to sous vide pork tenderloin

Pork tenderloin cooked sous vide style should always be cooked for at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours. Consult the sous vide time chart for pork tenderloin (further down this page) for variations on cooking time and temperature recommendations, depending on how you like your pork cooked.

 You are welcome to take a screenshot of this time and temps chart for sous vide pork so you have it handy.

Sous vide pork tenderloin time chart

This time and temp chart for sous vide pork tenderloin should only be used for smaller, less-tough cuts of pork, like tenderloin, sous vide loin chops, plus both bone-in and sous vide boneless pork chops.

• RARE Sous Vide Pork Tenderloin: 136°F/58°C
• MEDIUM Sous Vide Pork: 144°F/62°C
• WELL DONE Sous Vide Pork: 158°F/70°C

This is really a fast sous vide recipe when you consider some pork recipes sous vide style takes 24 hours to make. Want to try tasty long-cook sous vide recipe? See my guide to sous vide pork butt or sous vide carnitas.

Sauces and marinades for sous vide pork tenderloin

Pork tenderloin is an excellent cut of meat to use with strong flavors. With the flavors below, you can make a tasty pan sauce with leftover sous vide pork juice, a marinade, or a glaze to finish it in the oven.

• Apples and pork go together well – try adding apple sauce or apple butter to the dish
• Carolina BBQ sauce
• Creamy jalapeno ranch sauce
• Orange juice
• Garlic butter
• Drizzle of honey
• Dijon mustard
• Soy sauce

In The Home Chef’s Sous Vide Cookbook, you’ll find a recipe for honey BBQ glazed sous vide pork loin. It’s delicious.

What to serve on the side

• Garlic and thyme mushrooms
• Green beans
• Roasted carrots
• Sous vide asparagus
• Sous vide corn
• Rice or farro
• Chef hub’s chorizo sausage stuffing

How to refrigerate sous vide pork tenderloin

Refrigerate pork soon after cooking. I usually leave it in the bag for up to 4 days.

How to reheat sous vide pork tenderloin

Have leftovers? Reheat sous vide pork tenderloin any way you’d like. I like to pop it in the oven (in a baking dish wrapped tightly in tin foil) to make sure it reheats as evenly as possible.

At my house, cooking sous vide in bulk means we have leftovers for next-day eating. For brunch, we’ll add diced up pork to breakfast tacos with pico de gallo. For lunch, we’ll do sous vide pork sandwiches, sometimes topped with sous vide overnight bacon if there’s some in the fridge from a batch made earlier that week.

Tips to meal prep sous vide pork tenderloin

If you grocery shop in bulk for a month, or even a week or two at a time, you have a lot of options to meal prep sous vide food.

Here’s what I do. Usually, I’ll come home from the grocery store and divide up meat that’s purchased in bulk. I’ll keep one dinner serving in the refrigerator for that week, and pop the rest in the freezer. See the section below for details on seasoning pork before meal prepping it.  

Can you sous vide pork one day, and finish it the next?

Yes – totally. This happens weekly in my house. It’s such a big help to do this on busy nights.

Here’s what to do:

1. Follow the sous vide steps
2. When it’s done cooking, shock the bag in an ice bath to cool it down
3. Leave the pork it in the bag (to make life easier!) and stick it in the fridge for overnight (or up to a few days)
4. When it’s the “lucky day” to enjoy this sous vide pork recipe, sear it in a cast iron skillet, broil it in the oven, or finish it on the grill. The inside is already cooked, so you’re just warming it up a bit and getting a delicious crust on the outside.

It’s amazing how long sous vide pork tenderloin stays good once sous vide cooked, though I recommend enjoying it within a few days.

How to sous vide frozen pork tenderloin

This is one of the best sous vide meal prep tricks for busy people. Sous vide frozen pork tenderloin by adding on 60 minutes to the cooking time.

A sous vide hack I recommend is to prepare the meat in advance, before freezing it. It’s much easier to toss seasonings and/or a little sauce into the bag before freezing it, so you can transfer the bag directly from the freezer to the precision cooker bath.

Stick this sous vide pre-marinated pork tenderloin trick in your back pocket for a busy week.

Freeze cooked pork tenderloin (after sous vide)

This is another way to meal prep sous vide tenderloin: sous vide then freeze it.

Once cooked in the sous vide precision cooker, you can freeze uncut pork and it will last 2-3 months in the freezer. Leave it in the sealed sous vide bag in the freezer, then 1-2 days before you want to eat it, move it to the fridge to thaw. Then finish and serve.

Wine pairings for pork

For a red, go for a Pinot Noir, especially if pairing pork with a garlic-based sauce or seasoning. If you’re adding a sweet component to the dish, pair it with a dry white wine.

Plating tips for pork tenderloin

Slice the sous vide pork tenderloin before putting a final sauce on to ensure maximum sauce coverage.

If this recipe checks all the boxes for you, then I have another you’ll love. Check out another tasty sous vide dinner idea: sous vide bone in pork chops. Similar to this recipe, you’ll see how to finish them in a cast iron skillet. I love serving this dish with creamy, green cilantro ranch dressing.

Final tips for sous vide pork tenderloin

• This sous vide pork recipe tastes great with my “Carolina style” yellow mustard BBQ sauce. The recipe makes about 1 cup. You will probably have leftover sauce, which you’ll enjoy because it’s a great sauce for all types of meats and it keeps well in the fridge for a couple of days.
• Another sauce for sous vide pork recipes you’ll love is this creamy jalapeno ranch sauce as seen in my sous vide bone-in pork recipe.
• Serving sous vide pork for a holiday? Go traditional and serve it with a little applesauce or apple butter. Sous vide pork and apple flavors go so well together.
• Friendly reminder not to sous vide pork in-store packing it comes in. Transfer it to a ziplock or vacuum seal bag.

I’m passionate about sous vide cooking, and maybe that’s why Sip Bite Go has become one of the most popular sous vide blogs on the web. This food hobby turned blog, has recently become a sous vide cookbook.

 

Find new ways to enjoy your favorite food with sous vide cooking. Get inspired by my new book – The Home Chef’s Sous Vide Cookbook.

Ready to make it?

Now that you know how to season and cook pork tenderloin under water, I’m excited to hear how your meal turns out. Leave a comment here or find me on Instagram @sipbitego to let me know what you think about this recipe.

Want to make restaurant-style food at home? I’ll teach you how, with in-depth video guides on the Sip Bite Go channel.