How to Cook Potatoes Sous Vide (2024)

Oh, potatoes. There’s very little you can’t do, and very rarely do I turn you away.

For example, I’m totally unopposed to cooking up a really good bag of frozen French fries. Or tater tots. I’m also completely smitten with making my own oven-roasted potatoes, and I also love serving boiled potatoes slathered with olive oil or butter (or a bit of both, let’s be honest) and some fresh herbs.

Sous vide potatoes are the best of both worlds: Buy fresh potatoes at the store and cook a big batch sous vide, then you can eat them right away, freeze them for later, or keep them in the fridge and reheat them throughout the week.

How Sous Vide Cooking Works

How does sous vide work, exactly? Well, an immersion circulator creates a consistent temperature environment that ensures very precise cooking results. It’s similar to a slow, gentle poach that helps food retain its moisture, too.

This low, slow method of cooking sous vide is well suited to vegetables because it keeps them at a consistent temperature and cooks them thoroughly but without letting them getting too mushy.

There’s a little bit of a learning curve or trial and error with using this style of cooking, but it’s nothing to be too wary of. It’s mostly a hands-off process, not unlike cooking in a slow cooker.

New to sous vide cooking? Start here!

• Everything You've Been Wondering About Sous Vide Cooking at Home
• How to Use Your New Sous Vide Immersion Circulator
• How to Seal Foods Without Using a Vacuum Sealer
• Sous Vide and Food Safety: What to Know

The Best Potatoes to Sous Vide

For this recipe, the smaller the potato the better because they cook faster. Look for little ones that you'd normally use for boiling or pan-frying.

I tested this recipe several times with combinations of yellow, red, and purple baby potatoes, all of which worked equally well. These potatoes are a little bit waxy, so hold their shape well and they also can go right into a hot pan or oven afterward to further develop flavor.

I also tried some potatoes that were irregularly sized, and in those cases, I made sure all the potato pieces were approximately the same size by cutting them in half or in quarters.

If you have the ability to hand-select your potatoes in a bulk bin or at the farmers’ market, look for ones that are about the same size—tiny potatoes about an inch or less in diameter are great, but larger ones can be cut in half or quarters.

If bags of potatoes are your only option, that's fine; just know that some will always be some larger and smaller. Again, just cut the larger ones so that all the pieces are roughly the same size.

Prepping the Potatoes

When I first started working on this technique during recipe testing, I tried leaving some of the slightly larger baby potatoes whole, but I couldn't get them to cook all the way through in an hour. Since I’d rather not wait more than an hour for cooked potatoes, I decided to try halving the larger ones.

Problem solved. The potatoes cooked through.

The last time I made this recipe -- when we photographed them for this post -- I went with a combination of cut up and whole potatoes, cutting the larger ones to match the size of the smallest whole potato (sometimes you'll find those tiny potatoes the size of pencil erasers in a bag; disregard those). When I took this mixed approach of whole and cut potatoes, I didn’t encounter any inconsistencies in cooking.

Here's what to do: Leave whole any potatoes that are smaller than 3/4-inch in diameter. If you have a motley selection of small potatoes (or even bigger ones you want to use up), halve or quarter them into smaller pieces about 1-inch (or less) in size.

How Long to Cook the Potatoes

Potatoes take about an hour cooked sous vide at 194°F. When done, the potatoes should be tender all the way through when pierced with a fork. If not, reseal the bag and continue cooking a few extra minutes (and cut your pieces a little smaller next time!).

Make Ahead Potatoes

A big advantage to cooking sous vide is the ability to make components of meals ahead of time.

You can make these sous vide potatoes on the weekend, keep them in the refrigerator, and then reheat them in a pan with a little bit of oil to get the edges nice and crispy.

That’s my preference. This nets you the effect of roasting the potatoes, but without dealing with the oven. Bonus!

I tend to make these potatoes and then eat them throughout the week either with eggs in the morning, or with a protein for dinner.

More Sous Vide Recipes to Try!

• Sous Vide Carrots
• Sous Vide Pork Chops
• Sous Vide Teriyaki Salmon
• Sous Vide French Dip Sandwiches
• Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin with Port Wine and Garlic