Sous vide cooking is a great way to cook food to perfection, and this is especially true with things such as lobster. Even better, butter poached lobster is quite the delicacy, and this technique is nearly foolproof! Adding herbs and garlic to the lobster as it cooks sous vide and finishing with a lemon beurre blanc is absolutely decadent and an easy and perfect way to impress your dinner guests! Whether you are planning a fancy dinner party, a special occasion, or date night, this Garlic Butter Herb Sous Vide Lobster recipe is what you need to make!

Looking for more delicious lobster recipes? Try out our Lobster Pappardelle Pasta with Champagne Cream Sauce or our Lobster Ravioli with Lemon Cream Sauce.
Jump to:
- Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- Sous Vide
- Sous Vide Time and Temps for Lobster Tails
- Other Ways to Cook Lobster
- Ingredients
- Substitutions
- How to Make Sous Vide Lobster
- Equipment
- Step-by-Step Instructions
- Variations
- Storage
- How to use Leftover Lobster Meat
- Top tips
- Troubleshooting
- What to Make with Butter Herb Lobster Tails
- What Wines Pair with Lobster?
- FAQ
- Related
- Pairing
- 📖 Recipe
- Food safety
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- Sous vide cooking is extremely easy once the lobster is in the water bath
- You will have a perfectly cooked piece of meat at the end.
- The flavor is exceptional!
- The sauce doesn’t take much time at all and is absolutely stunning with this lobster.
Sous Vide
Sous vide simply means vacuum sealed in French. The sous vide cooking technique is vacuum sealing whatever you wish to cook in a plastic bag, immersing the bag in water that is kept at uniform precise temperatures, and removing it after a specified cooking time. Cooking sous vide results in food cooked to the exact temperature you want every time!
There are many variables in cooking temperature and time when cooking sous vide, but they are all super simple to manage, making this method one of the easiest cooking methods out there! The key is that different foods require a different temp and cooking time. There are plenty of resources available online for time and temp guides depending on what you are cooking
All that sous vide cooking requires is a heater/water circulator (we use this one). Since the water temperature stays constant, the item being cooked will cook to that temperature throughout and will not go any higher. Furthermore, there will be no carryover in the cooking process, so if the item needs to be seared afterwards, then the sous vide temperature can be lowered just couple of degrees to allow for searing at a high temperature for a short period of time.
For another sous vide recipe, check out this recipe for Habanero Honey Soy Rack of Lamb cooked Sous Vide.
Sous Vide Time and Temps for Lobster Tails
There is nothing worse than splurging on some beautiful lobster tails and ending up with a dense, tough, dry and even rubbery result after cooking. Cooking lobster tails sous vide results in a perfectly cooked buttery lobster tail every time, which is why it is our preferred cooking method for lobster.
When cooking lobster sous vide, you have a few options for temperatures depending on the texture of the lobster meat you prefer.
Lobster Sous Vide Cooking Temps
- 120°F: Very very soft, somewhat translucent and almost raw texture, similar to sashimi. Not our preference, but this is the minimum temperature we would recommend for lobster tail sous vide.
- 130F°: Soft and incredibly tender, and just cooked through.
- 140F°: Firm yet still tender and juicy. This texture is much closer to that of traditional methods of cooking lobster.
We like the lobster meat to be tender and juicy, but not too soft, which is why in this recipe we recommend cooking the lobster for 45 minutes at 138-139°F. This might seem like an oddly specific temperature, but it results in the perfect doneness in our opinions! We find that anything over 140°F tends to be on the tougher side for our preference, and 130-135°F is a bit too soft for our liking. A couple of degrees F can make a big difference in texture, but it all boils down to personal preference in texture. So try a few different temps to figure out exactly how you prefer your lobster.
Lobster tails are best when cooked for 45-60 minutes at the above temps.
Other Ways to Cook Lobster
Although we highly recommend sous vide as the best and easiest way to cook lobster to tender, juicy perfections, there are many other ways to cook lobster depending on what you want.
Lobster can be successfully roasted, poached in a pot (rather than sous vide), broiled, grilled, boiled, steamed, sautèed, or even deep fried. Nearly every technique will yield significantly different results in flavor, texture, and preciseness.
The sous vide technique is definitely one of our go-to methods for cooking lobster as it will result in a perfectly tender and flavorful dish with little effort.

Ingredients
Here is what you need to make this recipe for Butter Herb Sous Vide Lobster Tails
For the lobster:
- Lobster: Lobster tails in their shells that are 4-6 ounces are perfect for this recipe and are generally easy to find at your local grocery store or fish market. We recommend using flash frozen lobster tails for ease, but you can, of course, use live lobster as well. We use warm water (Caribbean) lobster tails, but cold water (Maine) varieties work well also.
- Kosher salt and black pepper
- Unsalted Butter: Good unsalted butter will create the butter poached flavor in the lobster tails while they cook sous vide
- Thyme: A handful of fresh thyme sprigs added to the bag gently infuses the lobster with a great flavor
- Bay leaf: Just one brings the flavor of the lobster together perfectly
- Fresh garlic cloves: Just a couple of whole cloves of garlic lend a mild and subtle flavor that complements lobster.
For the butter sauce:
- Whole peppercorns: Black, white or a combination of the two is best
- Extra virgin olive oil: Quality extra virgin olive oil is used to cook the shallot
- Shallot: The basis for a good beurre blanc is a shallot, and shallots have a unique flavor that differs from onion and is preferred in the sauce.
- Dry white wine: We like a citrusy dry white wine like sauvignon blanc for this version of beurre blanc
- Lemon zest: This provides a nice lemon background flavor to the sauce
- Unsalted butter: Butter is the main ingredient in the sauce and adds body, so use your favorite unsalted butter. European butter is our preference since it has a higher fat content and creates a nice thick emulsified sauce consistency.
- Kosher salt
- Parsley and lemon for serving.
See recipe card below for quantities.
Substitutions
Here are a few common substitutions for the ingredients in this recipe:
- Fresh Herbs: There are other great herbs to use instead of or even with the thyme. Tarragon, cilantro, dill, lemongrass, and basil are all good options with the lobster. Fresh is best.
- Citrus: Instead of lemon, you could use nearly any citrus fruit for the sauce. Grapefruit, lime, or tangerine are all great options
- Garlic: Instead of garlic with the lobster (which is our choice here) you could use a small amount of onion, green onion, or even chives for a good complementary flavor.
- Lobster: You could replace the lobster with jumbo prawns or jumbo shrimp in this recipe. Please note though that shrimp generally need less time to cook sous vide (about 20-35 minutes) and can be cooked as low as 130-132°F.
How to Make Sous Vide Lobster
This dish is quite simple and you’ll love the results. Just take the lobster tail out of its shell, season it, pack it in a sous vide vacuum bag and vacuum seal with the herbs and butter and drop it in the sous vide bath for 45 minutes to an hour. Meanwhile you can make the sauce and when it is done, just remove the lobster tails from the bag, plate and serve with the sauce for a perfectly fancy romantic dinner that is ultra impressive.
Equipment
Here is what you need to make this dish
- Kitchen shears/scissors
- A large pot or sous vide container for the water bath
- A sous vide immersion circulator wand
- A vacuum sealer (optional but recommended)
- A vacuum sealable bag (optional but recommended) or a ziplock bag
- A saucepan or small sauté pan for making the sauce

Step-by-Step Instructions
Sous vide lobster with lemon beurre blanc could not be easier to make! Here is how to do it:
Step 1: Prepare the Lobster
- Start your sous vide bath at 138-139°F. Use kitchen shears or clean scissors to cut two straight lines from the thick part of the underside of the shell to the thin part on either side of the tail. Peel the thin membrane back toward the tip of the tail. Using your finger, pull the meat away from the top part of the shell until you can pull the lobster tail down away from the top of the shell through the bottom where you made the cuts. The tail should pull out of the shell quite easily. Discard the shells.
Step 2: Season, Bag and Seal the Lobster with Butter and Herbs
- Season the lobster tail meat with salt and pepper. Put the tails in the sous vide bag, add the cold butter, thyme, bay leaf, and garlic to the bag and seal.
Step 3: Sous Vide the Lobster
- Once the water is to temperature, add the bag to the preheated water bath and set a timer for 45 minutes.
Step 4: Prepare the Sauce Base
- With about 5-10 minutes left on the timer, start the beurre blanc. Heat a saucepan over medium heat with the peppercorns in the pan for about a minute to toast the peppercorns. Add the oil and chopped shallots and reduce the heat to medium low. Cook until the shallots are translucent, then add the lemon zest. Add the wine and cook until the wine has reduced by half.
Step 5: Strain the Sauce and Reduce
- Remove the sauce from the heat, strain through a fine mesh strainer into a small container or bowl. Make sure the pan doesn’t have any solids but do not wash it. Return the pan to the stovetop and pour the strained sauce back into the pan. Continue to cook until there is about 3 tablespoons of liquid remaining.
Step 6: Finish the Sauce with Butter
- Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for 30 seconds. Whisk in cold butter 1 tablespoon at a time until the sauce has a silky texture. Add salt to taste.
Step 7: Plate the Lobster and add the Sauce
- Remove the lobster from the sous vide bag, plate and top with the beurre blanc. Serve garnished with chopped parsley and a grilled lemon!
Variations
Here are a couple ways to change up this recipe:
- Shrimp is a great alternative to lobster, just reduce the time by 15 minutes and cooking temp to 130-132°F.
- Use a cream sauce instead of a beurre blanc with great results
- Use a different citrus in the sauce. Lime, tangerine, or grapefruit are great options.
Storage
How to store leftover lobster tails:
- Leftover lobster can be kept refrigerated in a sealed container or sealed plastic bag for 2-3 days.
How to reheat leftover lobster?
- The best way to reheat leftover lobster is to put it in a sous vide bag, and reheat in water at 140°F until heated through. This will ensure that the lobster meat doesn’t cook further and become tough.
- Another method is placing the leftover lobster in a small pan with some butter and heat over low until heated through.
Can you freeze leftover cooked lobster meat?
- Generally this is not going to result in the best flavor and texture but it can be done. It just needs to be cooled, dried off with a paper towel, then packed in an airtight bag and frozen. To use, defrost completely then reheat using the methods recommended above.
- If the lobster was prefrozen before you cooked it the first time, we DO NOT recommend refreezing the lobster.
How to use Leftover Lobster Meat
Although we generally don't have leftovers, because these lobster tails are so so delicious and we devour them when we make them, there are plenty of great ways to use up the leftovers.
Once of our favorite ways to use leftover lobster is Lobster Eggs Benedict with Saffron Cream Sauce!
Another option is to use the leftover lobster meat in pasta, like this Lobster Pappardelle Pasta with Champagne Cream Sauce, or as a filling for ravioli, like this Lobster Ravioli with Lemon Cream Sauce.
You can also add lobster meat to risotto or mashed potatoes for an elevated side dish.
Top tips
- Sous vide cooking is very forgiving as you technically can’t overcook the lobster as the temperature is set at exactly what you want to have as the final temperature of the meat. However, you can have an adverse effect on the texture of the lobster if it is left in the sous vide for too long. For best results, you have a large window of 45 minutes to 90 minutes.
- For the sauce, never add the butter to the sauce when the pan is very hot. Let it cool for a minute off heat, then whisk in the butter. The sauce can be gently warmed on the lowest setting for brief periods of time to allow more butter to be added.
Troubleshooting
The worst things that can happen are 1. Your sous vide bag is improperly sealed or otherwise lets water in with the lobster. Just check your bag a couple of times. If it breaks, remove it immediately, repack it with new butter and herbs if needed and continue cooking for the remaining time left. This isn’t the end of the world as long as you use clean water in your water bath, but it will water down the flavor of the lobster if left, so this should be prevented if possible.
Another issue that can occur in this recipe is that the butter in the sauce is added when the pan is too hot and the sauce breaks. If this happens, you may have to restart the sauce. But try adding some ice chips or very cold water (a teaspoon or so at a time) and whisk vigorously until the sauce comes back together before starting over. Although the sauce may be broken, it will still taste great, so you can just serve it as a broken sauce if you don’t want to start over.
What to Make with Butter Herb Lobster Tails
Lobster goes great with a variety of side dishes, such as pasta, potatoes, artichokes, asparagus, and corn. There aren’t many things that can’t be made along with these butter poached lobster tails so make what you like!
What Wines Pair with Lobster?
Lobster loves white wine and really isn’t a good match with most reds. We especially like white Burgundy for a special pairing. But a clean, unoaked chardonnay from California also works exceptionally well. Others that are exceptional are chablis, pinot grigio, and any dry or brut sparkling wine or a good brut Champagne.

FAQ
Once the lobster is submerged, it will be done in 45 minutes. It can be left in the sous vide water bath for up to 90 minutes without any real change in texture. The temperature will be constant throughout, however after 90 minutes the protein will start to turn softer and will reach a “mushy” stage if left in too long. We recommend starting the sauce after 40 minutes and it will be done before the lobster has been in the water bath for an hour.
We have experimented with various temperatures and found that 138-139°F yields the best results for tender, but not rubbery lobster that is cooked the way we like it. Some people swear by lower (125-135°) temperatures and purists who like the texture to be like a boiled lobster will go with 145°F.
This is up to whomever is eating it! With sous vide, so many added flavors can be “trapped” in the bag with the lobster that the flavor has no choice but to interact with the lobster. So we love this method. However, we also love grilling over natural wood and/or charcoal to get that hint of smokiness. It is much harder to get the final temperature/texture to be perfect on a grill, but we love the taste nonetheless.
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Pairing
These are our favorite veggie side dishes to serve with butter poached lobster:
📖 Recipe

Garlic Butter Herb Sous Vide Lobster with Lemon Beurre Blanc
Equipment
- Kitchen shears/scissors
- 1 Large pot or sous vide container for the water bath
- 1 Vacuum sealer (optional but recommended)
- 1 Vacuum sealable bag (optional but recommended) or a ziplock bag
- 1 A saucepan or small sauté pan
Ingredients
For the Lobster:
- 2 lobster tails 4-6 ounces each
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 4 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter
- 5-10 fresh thyme sprigs
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 large cloves garlic
For the Sauce:
- 10 whole peppercorns
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 small shallot finely chopped
- ½ cup dry white wine
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 5 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter
- Kosher salt to taste
Instructions
Sous Vide the Lobster
- Start your sous vide bath at 138-139°F.
- Using kitchen shears or clean scissors, cut two straight lines from the thick part of the underside of the tail to the thin part on either side of the tail. Peel the thin membrane back toward the tip of the tail. Using your finger, pull the meat away from the top part of the shell until you can pull the lobster tail down away from the top of the tail through the bottom where you made the cuts. The tail should pull out of the shell quite easily.
- Season the lobster tails with salt and pepper. Put the tails in the sous vide bag, add the cold butter, thyme, bay leaf, and garlic to the bag and seal.
- Once the water bath is to temperature, add the bag to the water and set a timer for 45 minutes.
Make the Lemon Beurre Blanc Sauce
- With about 5-10 minutes left on the timer, start the beurre blanc. Heat a saucepan over medium heat with the peppercorns in the pan for about a minute to toast the peppercorns. Add the oil and chopped shallots and reduce the heat to medium low. Cook until the shallots are translucent, then add the lemon zest. Add the wine and cook until the wine has reduced by half.
- Remove the sauce from the heat, strain through a fine mesh strainer into a container. Make sure the pan doesn’t have any solids but do not wash it. Return the pan to the stovetop and pour the strained sauce back into the pan. Continue to cook until there is about 3 tablespoons of liquid remaining.
- Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for 30 seconds. Whisk in the cold butter 1 tablespoon at a time until the sauce has a silky texture. Add salt to taste.
- Remove the lobster from the sous vide bag, plate and top with the beurre blanc. Serve garnished with parsley and a lemon!
Nutrition
Food safety
- Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat
- Wash hands after touching raw meat
- Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods
- Never leave cooking food unattended
- Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds
- Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove
Leave a Reply