Sous Vide Pork Roast (or Roast it in the Oven)

Our sous vide pork roast is a succulent, flavorful, and consistent way to cook a beautiful center-cut pork loin. Fabulous for the holidays, a dinner party, or a few family dinners. Includes oven instructions too, if you’re not into sous vide or want to make a pan sauce. Both methods yield great results.

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Why this recipe works

As often as possible, I like to include a pork roast as a centerpiece of our Christmas dinner. I’ve never met a meat eater who didn’t love it, and it goes beautifully with all our favorite holiday side dishes.

Cooking a boneless center-cut pork loin sous vide offers a variety of benefits. It:

• Virtually eliminates the risk of overcooking this lean (and eminently overcook-able) cut
• Helps infuse the whole roast with the flavors of the savory compound butter
• Saves coveted holiday oven space
• Minimizes cleanup
• Is almost completely hands-off, with only 10 minutes of prep time and no need to tend to the roast while cooking
• Gives you the option to serve as-is or sear at the end of cooking to brown the outside

Over the years I’ve roasted many a center-cut pork loin in the oven. You may prefer to cook it this way if you:

• Would like to make a pan gravy with your roast
• Have a pork loin that’s larger than about three pounds and don’t want to cut it in half before cooking. Larger cuts may not fit nicely into zip-top or sous vide bags for cooking.
• Are short on time — roasting takes about 1/3 of the cooking time needed for sous vide
• Just aren’t into sous vide cooking or don’t have the necessary equipment

Whichever method you choose, this roast is always a crowd pleaser.

What you’ll need

Here’s a glance at the ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe.

• Boneless center cut pork loin (sometimes called center loin roast or pork center rib roast) is a large, lean cut of pork with a thin fat cap on one side. It has a mild flavor that plays well with many seasonings and side dishes. To cook this cut sous vide, look for a roast that’s about three pounds, or be ready to cut a larger loin into two. If you’re roasting it in the oven, you can use any size, figuring on about 1/3 to 1/2 pound per person.
• If possible, use a good cultured, salted butter from grass-fed cows. It sounds fancy but doesn’t have to be — Kerrygold is my go-to brand at the supermarket and isn’t overly expensive.
• Plenty of fresh garlic, thyme, sage, and lemon zest beautifully complement the pork.

Sous vide equipment

Here’s what I use to cook sous-vide:

• Precision cooker
• Food storage container (optional, but helpful)

How to make it

Here’s an overview of what you’ll do to make a succulent sous vide pork roast. You can see the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post, and get all the details for this and the oven method in the recipe card below.

1. Pat the pork dry with paper towels. In a small bowl, mix together butter and all seasonings.
2. Spread the butter mixture evenly over the pork.
3. Preheat water bath by setting sous vide cooker to 140°F for 3 hours. Timer will not start until water is preheated. Place pork into a gallon-size zip-top freezer bag and partially seal. When water is ready, submerge most of bag in water to force out remaining air, and finish sealing. Clip bag to side of container and cook for three hours.
4. Meat is ready to slice and eat (no need to rest it), or you can sear it first to brown the outside. That’s it!

Expert tips and FAQs

What to serve it with

This pork roast pairs beautifully with a wide variety of holiday and everyday side dishes. Here are a few of our favorites:

For the holidays

• Yukon gold mashed potatoes
• Creamed pearl onions
• Classic or cornbread stuffing
• Cranberry sauce

For other dinner parties

• Brown butter white bean purée
• Green beans vinaigrette
• Applesauce

What’s the difference between pork loin and pork tenderloin?

These two cuts have similar names, but they’re different. The tenderloin is a very lean, boneless cut from the muscle along the central spine. It averages about 12 inches in length, three inches in diameter, and a little over a pound in weight. It’s number 8 in this diagram.

The loin is a larger, thicker cut that’s still quite lean but has a thin fat cap. It can be sold bone-in or boneless. (Fun fact: pork chops, whether bone-in or boneless, are slices of the loin.) A whole loin can weigh up to about five ponds, but it’s often sold in smaller pieces starting at about two pounds. At any of these sizes, it makes a great roast. Here’s where it comes from.

More favorite sous vide recipes

• Lobster tails
• Chicken breast

4.80 from 5 votes

Sous Vide Pork Roast

By Carolyn Gratzer Cope

Our sous vide pork roast is the most succulent, flavorful, and consistent way to cook a beautiful center cut pork loin. Fabulous for the holidays, a dinner party, or a few family dinners.

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 3 hours hrs 3 minutes mins

Total: 3 hours hrs 13 minutes mins

Servings: 8

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Equipment

• LODGE 12-inch Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Skillet
• Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker
• Rubbermaid Food Storage Container

Ingredients

For the pork loin

• ▢ 3- pound 1360-gram center-cut pork loin
• ▢ 2 tablespoons (28 grams) butter, at room temperature
• ▢ 8 garlic cloves, minced
• ▢ 1 tablespoon minced fresh sage leaves
• ▢ 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves
• ▢ Zest of 1 lemon
• ▢ 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
• ▢ 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the pan sauce, if roasting (optional)

• ▢ 2 tablespoons butter
• ▢ 1 shallot, minced
• ▢ 2 tablespoons (15 grams) flour
• ▢ ¼ cup (60 ml) dry white wine
• ▢ 1 ½ cups (360 ml) chicken broth

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions 

• Sous vide instructions
• Fill a deep pot or food storage container halfway with water. Clamp your sous-vide cooker to the side of the pot and set the temperature to 140°F and the timer for 3 hours. (Timer will not start until water preheats.)
• Pat the pork loin dry with paper towels.
• In a small bowl, mix together the butter, garlic, sage, thyme, lemon zest, salt, and pepper.
• Spread the butter mixture all over the pork loin.
• Place the pork into a gallon-size zip-top freezer bag. Squeeze out some of the air and partially seal the bag.
• When water is preheated, carefully submerge the partially sealed bag into the water so that the whole roast is covered with water but no water gets into the bag. Now you’ll perform the water displacement method of sealing the bag. Use one hand to help squeeze air out of the bag (the water itself does the heavy lifting here, but you’ll help it out) and the other hand to finish sealing the bag’s zip top.
• Clamp bag to the side of the pot and cook for 3 hours. Meat is ready to slice and serve as-is, or you can sear it if you like.
• To sear, set a 12-inch cast iron skillet over high heat and preheat for five minutes. Turn on the exhaust fan.
• Remove pork from bag and carefully pat dry without disturbing the garlic and herb crust. Transfer to hot skillet. Sear for 45 seconds per side, until golden brown.
• Slice pork against the grain and serve.
• Oven instructions
• Preheat oven to 375°F with a rack in the center.
• Pat the pork loin dry with paper towels.
• In a small bowl, mix together the butter, garlic, sage, thyme, lemon zest, salt, and pepper.
• Spread the butter mixture all over the pork loin.
• Place pork into a large Dutch oven or a roasting pan that can be transferred to the stovetop (if you’d like to make a pan sauce), and place pan in oven.
• Roast until internal temperature reads 145°F, usually 45 minutes to an hour.
• Place on a carving board and tent with foil. Let rest for 20 minutes before slicing.
  
• To make the pan sauce
• After removing the roast, set the roasting pan over low heat and melt the butter.
• Add shallot and cook, stirring, for just a minute until the shallot is tender but not too brown.
• Stir in flour, raise heat to medium, and cook for a minute or two, until very frothy.
• Stir in wine and broth (along with any accumulated juices from the roast).
• Cook until thickened to a gravy consistency, about 5 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper and serve alongside roast.

Notes

1. If you’d like a bit of a crust on the pork but would rather not pan-sear, you can run it under the broiler for a few minutes or use a kitchen blowtorch.
2. Since sous vide cooks the whole roast slowly, evenly, and only to the final temperature you’re looking for, there’s no need to wait for the juices to reabsorb into the roast before slicing. If roasting, let it rest for 20 minutes.
3. Leftover pork loin makes great sandwiches. Slice it and use in a pork banh mi, medianoche, or spicy pork and avocado (subbed in for the turkey).

Nutrition

Serving: 1, Calories: 70kcal, Carbohydrates: 2g, Protein: 9g, Fat: 3g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 26mg, Sodium: 544mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Pork

Cuisine: American

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