Reheating Sous Vide Meat, Fish, and Poultry
Emily Farris
January 14, 2021
Reheating a sous vide protein to the perfect temperature is ridiculously easy using the Anova Precision Oven’s Sous Vide Mode and included Food Probe. Because your food has already reached a safe temperature once (and we’ve all eaten leftover steak, chicken, and fish straight from the fridge, right?) the goal here is pleasantly warm, but definitely not overcooked.
For most items, you can use the oven in Sous Vide Mode at 130ºF/54.4ºC with 100% steam and a target of 120ºF/48.9ºC. There’s some wiggle room with chicken; if you want it warmer, the internal temperature can end up around 135ºF/57.2ºC and still yield fairly juicy meat. If your chicken has skin and you don’t want it to be soggy, you can cook without the steam or reduce it to 30%, but it will take longer to reach the desired temp as steam speeds up the cooking process (and keeps the meat from getting too dry). For fish like salmon and tuna, you can set your probe target to the same low temperature you cooked to originally, and set the oven temp 10ºF/5.5ºC higher than that.
In fact, no matter what protein you’re rewarming, when in doubt, you can always use the original sous vide temperature as your target temp and set the oven 10ºF/5.5ºC higher. Thanks to the Food Probe and Sous Vide Mode, you won’t overcook it.
The time it takes to reach the desired temperature will depend on the size and type of item you’re reheating, how cold you keep your refrigerator, and whether or not you’re using steam. In general, though, plan on at least 25 to 30 minutes using this method.
If you’re in a hurry, you can also rewarm your sous vide proteins at a higher temperature with or without steam, as long as you’re using the Food Probe to monitor the internal temperature.