Is Sous Vide Cooking Safe?

Sous vide has taken the culinary world by storm in the past couple of years. It's easy, convenient, and perfect for so many cooking tasks. And it can make your life easier at the same time.

But is it safe?

In this article, you'll learn about the 3 primary concerns about sous vide safety, and how to deal with all of them.

First of All, What Is Sous Vide?

Sous vide is a French term that means "under vacuum." You can cook in a sous vide machine by using the water displacement method--lowering the bag slowly into the water and letting the water pressure push the air out of the bag--but sous vide was originally used only with vacuum sealed food.

A vacuum sealer not only removes more air, it also makes food easier and safer to store before, during, and after cooking it sous vide. (We have a lot of articles about vacuum sealers, including: Why Every Kitchen Needs a Vacuum Sealer and How to Save Time, Money, and Food with Your Sous Vide + Vacuum Sealer).

Restaurants have been using sous vide for decades. It's a simple way to bring food to precise temperatures and hold it there until it's ready to be plated--no overcooking, no drying out.

Sous vide has been around for a long time, but it really caught the public's attention in 2011, when Modernist Cuisine came out.

This book was the first real champion of sous vide. It was the beginning of home cooks becoming interested in using sous vide. 

Even so, some people have concerns about sous vide. A big part of that is the safety.

So just how safe is it? 

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Concern #1: Low Temperature Cooking

Concerns about cooking food at low temperatures is justified.

Food left for more than a few hours at danger zone temperatures can produce bacteria that result in food-borne illness. 

For this reason, it's important that home chefs understand what the danger zone is and how to avoid it when cooking with sous vide.

What Is The Danger Zone?

The Danger Zone is the temperature range at which bacteria grow most rapidly on food and cause it to spoil. This temperature range is 39F-140F (4C-60C). Foods most susceptible to bacterial growth at danger zone temps include meat, seafood, eggs, sauces, raw sprouts, and cooked vegetables, beans, and pasta. Food should not be left at danger zone temperatures for more than 2 hours.

Thus, food should be stored at temperatures below 39F, cooked at temperatures of 140F and above, and not left at anything in between for more than 2 hours.

Wait, you say. A medium-rare steak is 130F-135F, isn't it? Yes, that's true. And here's why it's safe to eat: there is a lot of buffer built in to the food safety standards. The truth is that nearly all bacteria--and all known pathogenic bacteria--is killed at or just below 131F. This is according the FDA's "Bad Bug" book. So you can leave food in water baths set at 131F or above for several hours without danger of bacterial growth.

Also, all the bacteria is on the surface of the steak, so it will be killed by any searing method you choose to use. (Not so with ground meats, so you should cook those at higher temps and/or for longer times.) 

For most people, food doesn't need to be fully pasteurized in order to be considered safe. Humans eat raw and raw-ish food all the time (medium rare steak is an excellent example). However, some people need to be careful about consuming raw-ish food. If you're concerned about eating raw or undercooked food (pregnant women and immune-compromised persons have to be careful), you should make sure sous vide food has been cooked either above 140F or long enough to be fully pasteurized.

How long does it take to pasteurize (or at least to make food safe to eat)? Times vary for different foods. For most cuts of meat, at temps below 140F (but above 131F), it's a minimum of 30 minutes.

Note that this time means the entire cut of meat must be at the set temp, so the 30 minutes should be added to the come-up-to-temperature time. How long is this? At least 30 minutes from the time you immerse the meat, and maybe longer depending on how thick the cut is, how cold it is when you put it in the water bath, and how hot the water bath is (i.e., if it was below 131F, don't start timing until the bath reaches 131F).

How Do I Make Sure My Sous Vide Cooked Food Is Safe from the Danger Zone?

That's simple. Just follow these rules:

1. Cook food at 131F and above, giving it enough time for the internal temp to reach this point and stay there for at least 30 minutes.
2. Or, if you cook food below 131F (such as salmon, which is overcooked at 131F), be sure to not leave it in more than 2 hours. 
3. Or, if you cook at 140F or above--such as chicken, pork, and tough cuts of beef--you pretty much don't have anything to worry about as long as the entire piece of meat reaches temps of 140F or above and stays there for at least 30 minutes.

That's it; that's all you really need to do to avoid food-borne illness from sous vide cooking.

In reality, the chances of contracting a food-borne illness from sous vide cooked food is probably about the same as from any other cooking method, as long as you follow danger zone precautions. And as with all cooking, safe handling is very important: always wash your hands before handling food, avoid cross-contamination, wash food before using, etc.

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Concern #2: Vacuum Sealing

Vacuum sealing creates an anaerobic environment, which is the ecosystem preferred by one of the most toxic and dangerous food-borne pathogens known to man: botulism. 

If you combine food sealed in an oxygen-free environment with warm-but-not-hot temperatures, aren't you just asking for botulism?

Once again, that depends on how careful you are about danger zone issues.

What Is Botulism?

Botulism is a rare and potentially fatal illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. (Note: it is not caused by the bacterium itself.) The most common cause of botulism in adults is improperly preserved food (not from cooking methods).

In fact, botulism is extremely rare in developed countries. According to Wikipedia, there were just 154 cases of it in the U.S. in 2019. 

If you're concerned about food safety in general (and if you cook at all, you should be), there's a lot more to know about botulism and how to avoid it. This Wikipedia article is a good overview for anyone interested in food safety and how to avoid botulism.

Volume One of Modernist Cuisine (linked above) also has a lot of great information about food-borne pathogens.

Botulism and Vacuum Sealing

Botulism is certainly possible under anaerobic, low temperature conditions. However, if you follow the precautions for avoiding danger zone issues, then you are most likely safe from botulism, as well.

Here's an excerpt from a cooking forum discussion about it: 

This explains very clearly how botulism can occur in sous vide cooking. So, yes: botulism is possible with vacuum-sealed, sous-vide cooked food. But if you follow the danger zone rules--not cooking below 131F for more than a couple of hours--then it is extremely unlikely to be an issue with sous vide cooking. 

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Concern #3: All That Plastic!

Cooking in plastic bags is probably the least attractive thing about the sous vide method. After all, aren't we all trying to cut down on our plastic use in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint?

Using Plastic

Cooking sous vide is great for many reasons. But using plastic bags is not one of them. 

The truth is, whether you use sous vide or not, you're going to go through a lot of plastic in the kitchen. Almost all the food we buy comes in some form of plastic wrap or container. We freeze food in plastic, we store food in plastic bags and containers. Plastic wrap, plastic bags, Tupperware, and Rubbermaid are all parts of pretty much everyone's kitchen landscape. 

So in reality, using sous vide bags doesn't really add that much to our overall plastic use in the kitchen. But if you're concerned about it, there are some steps you can take.

Ways to Reduce Plastic Use When Cooking Sous Vide

Here are some ways to reduce your plastic use in sous vide cooking:

• Use the same bag for freezing as I do for cooking. When you freeze meat, pre-season so it's ready to just pop into the sous vide for a couple of hours. (Bonus: This also simplifies meal prep!) 
• Also use the bags for storage after cooking if there are leftovers. Always try to seal as close to the top of the vacuum bag as possible so you can re-seal it for storage. You must be sure to chill quickly and make sure the food stays below 40F until ready to eat again--otherwise the anaerobic environment could be a problem.
• When possible, use mason jars for sous vide. This isn't possible for a lot of foods because the water has to reach as much surface area as possible. However, it is possible for making foods like yogurt and creme brulee, which both cook really well sous vide. And eggs come in their own hermetically sealed package, so they don't require any container at all.

In addition, you can use mason jars for a lot of your food storage, and try to buy in bulk when possible to avoid a lot of plastic and styrofoam packaging. (You can find mason jars in just about any grocery store.)

Reusable Bags

Because of the plastic concern with sous vide cooking, some companies are developing reusable bags. Be sure to check them out if you're interested. They may not mold to cuts of meat as seamlessly as a vacuum bag, but they will definitely be good enough to get a decent sous vide result; you may have to give food a little extra time to make up for the less-even heating in silicone.

If you're extremely thrifty, you can also just re-use your storage and vacuum seal bags--as long as you're very careful about proper cleaning and drying after use.

More Efficient Sealing

You can also reduce plastic waste by efficient sealing. With a lot of edge sealers, you have to insert 25% or more of the bag in order for the sealer to work properly. If you want to use the vacuum bag more efficiently, buy a sealer such as the FoodSaver FM2000, which uses less bag for the seal. (It's also under $100.)

Alternatively, chamber vacuum sealers (like this one) are a great option because you can put the seal pretty much wherever you want it. The bags are also thinner--less plastic--and cheaper. So while a chamber vac is more money up front, you'll save both money and plastic with it long term. 

For more info on chamber sealers, see our article Chamber Vacuum Sealers: The 4 Best Deals on Amazon.

For more info on using less plastic in your sous vide cooking, see 6 Ways to Minimize Sous Vide Plastic Use.

Plastics Leaching Chemicals

In addition to the use of plastic in general is the concern about the safety of cooking in plastic bags. The biggest concern with using plastic bags is that when they're heated to certain temps, they can leach harmful chemicals like Bisphenol-A (BPA).

People have gotten very savvy about this chemical in recent years. Many have stopped using plastics in the microwave and stopped re-using disposable plastic containers for food storage (such as sour cream and cottage cheese tubs). A lot of people have even stopped using plastic water bottles because they can degrade (especially if left too long in the sun).

Is this smart? Of course it is, particularly when talking about re-using plastic storage containers for food. You may hate throwing away plastic containers, but it's wise to not re-use these containers, at least not for food, and especially not for re-heating in the microwave.

And if you still can't quite bring yourself to throw out perfectly good cottage cheese and yogurt containers, at least throw them out when they start to develop scratches--signs of wear can mean the plastic has degraded to the point that it is leaching chemicals into your food.

Having said all of that, nearly all food-grade plastic is now BPA-free, particularly plastics designed for food storage and microwave heating purposes.

But plastic is a complex substance, and it may still have potentially harmful chemicals in it that can break down under high heat conditions. The truth is, we really don't know for sure.

If that's a real concern, then why should you not be worried about using plastic bags in a sous vide cooker? Here's why: all sous vide is done at temperatures well below boiling, and boiling temp (212F/100C) is the temp at which plastics start to break down.

Also, all sous vide bags--at least from reputable manufacturers--are BPA-free, and will not break down at sous vide cooking temperatures. 

This includes vacuum sealer bags and zip-type food storage bags: both are BPA-free and both are considered safe for sous vide use.

For More Information

Here's a great web site with a short video about sous vide and plastics. This is a medical site, and it also goes into some detail about different types of plastics and what you should know about them. This is from 2012, so it's a few years old, but still good information.

Also, here's a short article from Modernist Cuisine about plastics and sous vide. This article is from 2013, so it also may not contain the latest information. But in all the research we've done, we have not found any concerns about cooking food in BPA-free plastic at normal sous vide temperatures. And we believe that the folks behind Modernist Cuisine, who are scientists first and food lovers second, would be up-to-date on the concerns surrounding sous vide cooking.

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