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Sous Vide Time & Temperature Calculator

Find the recommended sous vide water bath temperature and cook time for common proteins.

Result

Water Bath Temperature
135°F
Estimated Cook Time
1 hours (minimum)

Sous vide cook time scales with thickness (heat needs time to penetrate to the center), but unlike traditional cooking, sous vide food generally can't overcook from extra time at temperature within a reasonable window, since the water bath temperature IS the target internal temperature.

About the Sous Vide Calculator

This calculator looks up a recommended water bath temperature and estimated minimum cook time for six common sous vide proteins: rare steak, medium steak, chicken breast, pork chop, salmon, and a soft-set egg. It's built for anyone setting an immersion circulator who wants a starting temperature and time before dropping a bagged item into the bath.

How It Works

You choose a food from the dropdown and enter the thickness of the item in inches. Each food has a fixed target temperature and a base cook time in hours; the calculator multiplies that base time by the thickness (with a floor of 0.5 inch) to produce an adjusted minimum cook time, since heat takes longer to reach the center of a thicker cut.

adjustedHours = baseHours(food) x max(thickness, 0.5); temperature is a fixed lookup value per food, not calculated.

Formula & Methodology

Each food in the lookup table carries two fixed numbers: a target water temperature (for example 135°F for medium steak, 146°F for chicken breast, 167°F for a soft-set egg) and a baseHours value representing the time needed at 1 inch of thickness. To adjust for a different thickness, multiply baseHours by the entered thickness, but never by less than 0.5, so a very thin cut still gets at least half the base time. A 1.5-inch medium steak, for instance, uses baseHours 1 x 1.5 = 1.5 hours minimum.

Examples

1-inch chicken breast

Selecting chicken breast at the default 1 inch thickness gives a water bath temperature of 146°F and a cook time of 1.5 hours (baseHours 1.5 x max(1, 0.5) = 1.5).

1.5-inch rare steak

Selecting steak (rare) at 1.5 inches gives a target temperature of 125°F and a cook time of 1.5 hours, since baseHours 1 x 1.5 = 1.5.

Advantages

  • Converts a subjective judgment call (temperature and doneness) into a fixed lookup so you set the circulator correctly on the first try
  • Automatically scales the minimum cook time to the actual thickness of your cut instead of relying on a single generic number
  • Covers six distinct proteins with different target temperatures in one tool, from a soft egg at 167°F to salmon at 125°F

Common Mistakes

  • Measuring thickness at the thin edge of a cut instead of its thickest point, which understates the time actually needed to heat the center
  • Treating the calculated time as a maximum rather than a minimum and pulling food early before the core has fully come up to temperature
  • Assuming all proteins share one safe temperature, when the six foods in this tool span a range from 125°F to 167°F depending on food safety and texture goals

Edge Cases to Watch For

  • Thickness is clamped to a 0.5 inch minimum inside the calculation, so entering 0.25 inch or 0 still returns the same result as 0.5 inch - the tool will not let a thin cut compute an unrealistically short time.
  • If an unrecognized food value is somehow passed in, the code falls back to the medium steak data (135°F, 1 base hour) rather than erroring out.
  • The result is explicitly labeled a minimum - it does not account for going well beyond the calculated time, which sous vide handles differently than conventional cooking since the water temperature caps how hot the food can get.
  • Only six proteins are covered; thicker or unusual cuts, frozen starting temperature, or bath recovery time after adding cold food are not factored into the estimate.

Common Use Cases

  • Home cooks setting up an immersion circulator for the first time on a specific cut
  • Meal preppers scaling cook times across steaks, chops, or fillets of different thicknesses
  • Anyone converting a recipe written for a different thickness of protein than what they actually bought
Written & fact-checked by the Calculateus TeamLast updated August 5, 2026How we verify our formulas

Frequently asked questions

Why can't sous vide food overcook the way conventionally cooked food can?

Since the water bath is held at the exact target internal temperature you want the food to reach, the food can never get hotter than that temperature no matter how long it cooks (within food-safety limits) - this is fundamentally different from a hot oven or pan, where the cooking surface is much hotter than your target internal temperature, meaning timing has to be precise to avoid overshooting.

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Conclusion

The Sous Vide Time & Temperature Calculator turns six common target temperatures and a thickness-based time adjustment into a quick reference before you start the bath. Because it only outputs a minimum time floor, always confirm doneness against your own texture preference on the first attempt with a new cut.