If you’ve gone through the trouble of cooking a perfect steak or the expense of buying a prime cut at your favorite steakhouse, you know the dilemma of how to handle the leftovers. Heating that perfect steak to get a warm, juicy interior without overcooking the whole piece is tricky by the usual pan and oven heating methods. Enter the kitchen hero: sous vide. This bit of culinary wizardry isn’t just about reheating; it’s about bringing those steaks back to life with all the moisture and taste intact.
Sealing your leftover grilled steaks in a sous vide bag ensures that every drop of moisture and goodness stays locked in. By immersing that flavor-filled package into a preheated sous vide bath, you can let the precision temperature control do its thing without risking overheating the steak. The gradual low-and-slow reheating ensures the steak warms up evenly without the dryness or overcooking that can come from trying to revive it in a dry heat method.
Leftovers as good as the original
To warm your leftover steak, bring a sous vide bath to 130 degrees Fahrenheit (if you don’t have a sous vide machine, you can simply heat a pot of water on the stove). While the water warms, place the meat in a zip-top bag or seal it in a sous vide bag and keep it at room temperature for at least 30 minutes to take the chill off. When the bath reaches the correct temperature, place the bagged steak inside and allow it to warm for five minutes. Sous vide is especially perfect for handling thicker cuts that can be tricky to heat; simply keep the bag in the water longer. There’s no risk of overcooking since the temperature is a steady 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sous vide bag seals in all the flavorful moisture.
If you want to revive the outside crust as well, simply pat the rewarmed steak dry and quickly sear it in a hot pan, no more than a minute or two on each side. So, the next time you’re faced with leftover grilled steaks, don’t settle for a dry, overcooked dinner. Sous vide reheating gives your steaks a second act that’s just as good as the first.
