Our traditional Christmas family dinner is a prime rib roast. Over the years I have experimented with multiple ways to cook prime rib. I have now mastered a sous vide prime rib method.

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For Christmas 2019 we had 17 people. When you estimate about 1 pound of bone-in prime rib per person that means we were bought a 16-pound roast. As part of an experiment I cut the roast in half and did one a traditional oven reverse sear prime rib. The other half I cooked sous vide.

Sous vide is easy. You simply seal the meat in a sous vide bag and cook in the sous vide bath at the desired temperature you want the meat.

I settled on 132 degrees to get the meat a medium rare. Note to get the meat to the same level in my oven I pulled it out at 130 degrees because in the oven it will cook after removing.

With both sous vide prime rib and my oven reverse sear prime rib you sear the meat right before serving. It is a simple matter of putting the meat in the oven for about 10 minutes at the highest possible temperature (550 degrees for us). The goal is to get a crust on the meat.

Sous vide cooking is simple. Unlike the oven method you do not need to monitor the temperature so that the meat does not overcook. Both methods worked great, but the oven method is definitely more hands on.

The downside with sous vide prime rib is most roasts are two big for our sous vide containers. We have a 12-quart container. We also have a large 2-gallon silicon sous vide bag. This will fit a 6-pound roast with the bones removed (originally 8-pounds with bones).

Our roast was a 16-pound beast so we cut it in half and did the other half in the oven. You can see the full experiment here.

There are a few things to note:

Following the advice of Amazing Ribs, I remove the bones the day before and brine the meat overnight with kosher salt.
Unlike with the oven prime rib, I did not tie the sous vide prime rib into a cylinder to promote even cooking. Sous vide automatically cooks the meat to the exact temperature.
I only seasoned the meat with salt and pepper. For the oven roasted rib I used a horseradish crust. I thought this rub would be too messy cooking sous vide.
You can cook the meat in the sous vide for 6 to 10 hours, probably longer. I have seen some recipes that go as low as 4. Personally, I planned for 8 hours
Right before serving the meat is blasted for 10 minutes at the highest oven temperature (550 degrees in our case).

Sous Vide Prime Rib Roast

This recipe uses sous vide to cook a prime rib roast to the exact temperature every time.

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Prep Time 1

Cook Time 8

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Ingredients

1 bone-in rib roast 4 to 6-pound
½ cup olive oil
½ cup kosher salt
¼ cup ground black pepper

Instructions

The day before cooking remove bone from rib roast and set aside to make broth. Tie rib roast into a round cylindrical shape. Coat with ½ teaspoon kosher salt per pound of meat. Refrigerate overnight.
On the day of cooking, heat a sous vide bath to 132 degrees for medium rare (125 for rare, 135 for medium).
Coat roast with olive oil salt and pepper.
Place roast in sealed 2-quart sous vide bag. Cook roast in sous vide bath for 6 to 10 hours.
Remove roast and set aside until ready to serve. Half an hour before serving heat oven to 550 degrees. Sear roast in oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, slice and serve immediately.

Keyword Beef Recipe, Prime Rib, Rib Roast, Sous Vide

Be sure and check out the full guide to prime rib. You can also check out our guide to a reverse sear prime rib for a traditional oven technique.

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