Times have changed and now you can sous vide – and Lobster Anywhere thinks you should too! Leave the lab coat to the scientists and stay in your comfy clothes when you choose to sous vide lobster.
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What is it?
What was once left to the intense masters of cooking, can now simply be done in your very own kitchen. Pronounced “sue-veed”, the French term quiet literally means, “under vacuum”. Traditionally referring to vacuumed sealed bags, sous vide utilizes precise temperature control and water circulation to allow you to get results and textures that other methods just can’t do. Benefits include taste, waste reduction (shrinkage), consistency and flexibility. How could this get any better? With modern times among us and everyone enjoying the art of cooking in their own homes, techniques have become sleeker and easier. Offering perfect results every time, sous vide takes out the guessing and replaces doubts with accurate precision.
Why sous vide lobster?
Over-cooking lobster is an easy thing but using this cooking technique will give you confidence, all while infusing herbs and spices right into your food. Advancements have come in the form of time and temperature information linked right to your phone via an app. There’s no more standing over your food, fumbling around cluttered drawers or poking your food hoping it’s cooked right. Using a metal coil and a container or your choosing, this cooking device will heat the water bath to your exact temperature setting and allow low and slow cooking.
Can you sous vide whole lobster with shell?
With wild Maine lobster however, you will need to remove the meat from the shell or risk tearing the bags with the many projections from the shell. Even the smallest holes allow fats and coagulated proteins to gunk up your machine. In short, Lobsteranywhere suggests you break down whole lobster first before preparing to cook.
Retaining that sweetness and adding in endless possibilities of flavors is your next step.
What Types of Raw Lobster do you use?
- Tail Meat
- Knuckle, Claw and Tail Meat
- Claw Meat
- Claw and Knuckle Meat
- Lobster Tails
- Whole Lobster with spikes cut off (refer to our blog on how to humanely kill a lobster) ; this method is not fully recommeded for sous vide.
What Equipment do you Need?
- Sous Vide wand
- Container or pot
- Water
- Vacuum sealer or food-grade zipper bags
How long do you Sous Vide the Lobster?
- If you’re looking for sashimi style lobster tails, sous vide your meat for 45 minutes – 1 hour at 120 degrees (49 degrees Celsius). This will bring the meat to a soft and translucent state that has barely set.
- Cook your lobster tails for 45 minutes – 1 hour at 130 degrees (54 degrees Celsius) for a tender and soft texture. The succulent meat would be perfect in hot butter or a little mayo for lobster rolls.
- For good old fashioned style lobster that most New Englanders swear by, cook your lobster for 45 minutes – 1 hour at 140 degrees (60 degrees Celsius). The sous vide process will enhance the flavor of the lobster but the texture should be similar to boiling or steaming.
- Besides lobster tails, claws and knuckles should always be cooked at 150 degrees (64 degrees Celsius)for 1 hour. You want these little heavenly bites to be firm yet meaty. Cooking them at a lower temperature will result in either too long of time turning them into mush or, leaving them sashimi style.
Time and Temperature for Cooking Sous Vide Lobster
| Lobster Texture | Cooking Time | Temperature Setting |
| Sashimi style lobster tails | 45 minutes to 1 hour | 120 degrees/49 degrees Celsius |
| Succulent meat for lobster rolls | 45 minutes to 1 hour | 130 degrees/54 degrees Celsius |
| New England style lobster | 45 minutes to 1 hour | 140 degrees/60 degrees Celsius |
| Claws and knuckles only | 1 hour | 150 degrees/64 degrees celcius |
Time needed: 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Lobster Sous Vide Steps:
- Lobster Meat and Flavors
Start off with fresh lobster shipped right to your door! Defrost the raw tail meat in your refrigerator for at least 24 hours prior. Nothing goes hand in hand like New England lobster and butter. You can also add in fresh herbs and aromatics to spice up your plate. The BBQ Buddah uses 2Tbsp of butter and a few sprigs of fresh tarragon per 1lb package of raw lobster tails.
- Food-Grade Bags
Place all of your ingredients into a food-grade vacuum seal bag or plastic baggy. According to Cook’s Illustrated, most high-end, name-brand plastic bags, like Ziploc and Glad, are safe to sous vide in.
- Sealing
Using either a vacuum sealing machine or doing it by hand, you’re going to want to remove as much air as possible from the bag(s).
- Preparing Your Machine
Fill a large container or pot with water and place in your sous vide machine. Preheat to 135 degrees.
- Cooking Time
Once your water bath has been brought up to the correct temperature, add in your sealed pouch with lobster tails, butter and herbs to let soak for up to 1 hour for best results.
- Removing Bag from Water Bath
Remove bag and lobster tails from water bath.
- Infused Lobster Tails
Cut open and remove tails from the bag. Discard herb and butter leftover in the bag.
- Additions to the Plate
Top off your lobster tails with clarified butter, pinch of salt, fresh lemon and herbs.
Sous Vide Lobster FAQ
Having a device to keep a precise temperature while cooking ensures that you will never undercook or overcook your food items. This also means that your food item will be uniformly cooked through. So if there is a thicker or thinner end, even doneness will be present throughout. Sous vide will also produce consistent results every time.
If you don’t have a fancy smancy vacuum sealing device, don’t worry about it! That’s what is so nice about sous vide, it’s like having multiple kitchen equipment all wrapped into one. To use food-grade zipper top bags simply add your ingredients to bag and seal, leaving the last inch or so open. Then slowly lower your bag into the preheated water bath. As the bag begins to lower into the water bath, the water displacement will force the air from the bag. Right before the bag is fully submerged, seal the remainder of the bag and pull out of water bath. This will ensure an air tight seal before you begin your cooking process.
One of the most common problems with sous vide is a floating bag. What does this mean? This could mean that there is air trapped inside of your bag from a leaky or imperfect seal. Vapor can also form inside the bag throughout the cooking process or from air trapped inside the food product itself (when using longer cook times); causing air bubbles. Cooking with a less dense food item can also cause a bag to float during the sous vide process. Using a large binder clip to hold the bag in place, slip a heavy spoon into the mouth of the clip to keep the bag submerged, aiding in the problem as well.
There is some back and fourth about this topic which ends with your own personal taste preference. So playing around in the kitchen is it! There are two options nonetheless; sear your meat and veggies, prepare your sauce, before you bag, or after you have finished the water bath cooking. Both options leave you with a perfectly cooked item, your just deciding how rich and dark you want your sauce to be.
Bacteria grow most rapidly in the range of temperatures between 40 °F and 140 °F, doubling in number in as little as 20 minutes. This range of temperatures is often called the “Danger Zone.” You want to keep this in mind while cooking but also while defrosting/cooling your food.
Use the sous vide cooking technique to infuse spirits to enhance your lobster bisque or sauce that intend on being cooked out. You can even make compound butters to infuse flavors further into you lobster or steak.
Cook times take longer than usual methods and you will find yourself using a lot more epuipment.
Your also not going to get exactly the same sear on meats and proteins. Another nifty fact is that alcohol in a sauce needs to be cooked prior to infusing. This is bcuz it doesnt evaporate like normal cooking, unless you choose the method of simmering your sauce down after sous vide to thicken/concentrate your sauce.
Botulism is a real possibility when cooking with garlic at low temperatures but, as long as you keep away from the temperature danger zones, you can use as much fresh garlic as your heart desires. The other difference is that your fresh garlic won’t “cook” when placed in the bags raw. The infusion of flavor will be added to your food products but nonetheless, the garlic won’t be broken down and might even turn green. It won’t be spoiled if this happens, its just a reaction of certain amino acids within the foods compounds that creates the green coloring. It would of course have to be removed after the water bath. Furthermore, you could wait to heat your aromatics in oil/butter before adding your sauce from the bag for further reduction. You still get those beautiful flavors just without the extra stuff.
It is always best to use raw lobster meat when cooking sous vide to produce a better finished product. Using cooked lobster, you run the chance of overworking the protein and losing the texture. Lobster can break down into mush if overworked too much. So unless you’d like to eat your lobster through a straw, we recommend using raw meat.
Having a device to keep a precise temperature while cooking ensures that you will never undercook or overcook your food items. This also means that your food item will be uniformly cooked through. So if there is a thicker or thinner end, even doneness will be present throughout. Sous vide will also produce consistent results every time.
It is recommended to remove the meat from the shell or risk tearing the bags with the many projections from the shell. Even the smallest holes allow fats and coagulated proteins to gunk up your machine. LobsterAnywhere does not recommend sous vide a whole lobster in the shell.
If you’re looking for sashimi style lobster tails, sous vide your meat for 45 minutes – 1 hour at 120 degrees (49 degrees celcius). This will bring the meat to a soft and translucent state that has barely set.
Bonus!
Sous vide your surf and turf at the same time! Usually your steak can take longer, so once that has reached its halfway mark (depending on how you like yout steak cooked), then you can add the bag with lobster and cook-away. This ensures that your food is done at the same time so you can enjoy everything together.
Too technical? Find an easier way to make lobster, check out other methods here!
Citations:
- Chen, S. (2020). Complete Sous Vide Cookbook . Rockridge Press, Emeryville, California.
- Test Kitchen, A. (2018). Sous Vide for Everybody. America’s Test Kitchen.
- Roberts , D. (2021). The Complete Sous Vide Cookbook for Beginners. Daniel Roberts.
- Delany, A., & Leone, B. (2018, January 24). So, what is Sous Vide, anyway? Bon Appétit. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-sous-vide-cooking
- Electronics, Inc, A. A. (2021, August 26). Anova precision cooker. Anova Culinary. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://anovaculinary.com/anova-precision-cooker/
- López-Alt, J. K. (2020, March 6). How to cook sous vide lobster: The food lab. Serious Eats. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.seriouseats.com/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-lobster