Sous Vide Asparagus

Sous Vide Asparagus is amazingly tender and a good way to add a vegetable side to your sous vide meal. Am I going to cook all my asparagus this way? No, but I will remember this technique if I'm already cooking sous vide. (Also, the next time I get huge asparagus spears from my local farmers market, I'll pull out the vacuum sealer and this recipe.)

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• How to Sous Vide asparagus
• Substitutions
• Cooking asparagus as a sous vide side dish
• Sous Vide Asparagus
• Related Posts
• 💬 Comments

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of thick asparagus (about 16 ounces), tough ends trimmed
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter (1 ounce), cut into 2 pieces

How to Sous Vide asparagus

Season and seal the asparagus

Trim the tough ends of the asparagus spears, then sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Put the asparagus in a vacuum bag in a single layer, set the butter on top of the asparagus, and vacuum seal the bag. (Or, put the asparagus in a zip-top bag and squeeze all the air out by slowly lowering the bag into the sous vide water bath, then zipping completely closed when all the air is pushed out.)

Sous Vide the asparagus for 15 minutes at 184°F

Set a sous vide bath to 184°F/84°C (it helps to start with some boiling water to get the heat up to 184°F quicker.) Put the bag with the asparagus into the water bath and cook for 15 minutes, up to a max of 45 minutes.

Serve and enjoy

Remove the bag from the sous vide, cut it open, and move the asparagus to a serving platter. Pour some of the liquid in the bag over the asparagus. Serve and enjoy!

Substitutions

Lemon zest: My favorite addition to green vegetables is a little bit of lemon zest. I use my handy microplane grater to make a teaspoon-sized pile of lemon zest and add it to the bag. (If I'm using the water displacement sealing method, I'll also add a tablespoon of juice from the lemon. The juice would just make a mess with a vacuum sealer. If you have a fancy chamber-style vacuum sealer, you can use the juice).

Other seasonings: I sometimes add a slivered clove of garlic or minced shallots to the bag with the asparagus. (I especially like the shallot since I use it in pan sauces often when I'm making a sous vide steak.)

Cooking asparagus as a sous vide side dish

So, why go through all this trouble just for a few stalks of asparagus? If you heat water for sous vide, you can cook asparagus with your main dish. Let's say I'm cooking sous vide strip steak for dinner. I start with the asparagus and the water at 184°F and drop the steak in at the same time. Yes, 184°F is way too hot for the steak - but after 15 minutes, I pull the asparagus out and add ice (or cold water) to get the temperature down to where I want it (133°F for my preferred steak doneness). Then, when I'm 15 minutes away from finishing the steak, I put the asparagus back into the sous vide water bath to warm up. Voila - two courses in one sous vide bath!

Inspired by: Sous Vide Asparagus at AmazingFoodMadeEasy.com

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Related Posts

If you're looking for other sous vide veggies, try my Sous Vide Buttered Corn on the Cob or Simple Sous Vide Carrots. Looking for recipes to serve with this asparagus? Try Sous Vide Salmon (with a simple spice rub), Sous Vide Flat Iron Steak, or Grilled Sous Vide Filet Mignon with Parmesan Gremolata.
If you're looking for something else, here is my index of Sous Vide Recipes.

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