There’s something incredibly rewarding about a pork roast that cuts cleanly with a spoon and stays moist from edge to center. While I originally made this Hoisin Pork Roast Sous Vide for a Chinese-themed feast, it quickly earned a spot in our regular rotation because of how simple and foolproof it is.
This is one of my favorite ways to prepare pork roast. It’s full of flavor and easy to make. If I have leftovers, I make garlic bread sandwiches out of them.
This is a dish that respects tradition—built with bold Chinese flavors and a classic culinary approach—while leaning into modern convenience. It’s as much at home on a holiday table as it is for Sunday supper.
Hoisin Pork and Sous Vide
Sous vide cooking has revolutionized how to cook pork. Instead of worrying about dry edges or guessing doneness, the immersion method holds the roast at a precise temperature, allowing even collagen-rich cuts to become tender and juicy. It’s the kind of gentle precision that delivers professional results without stress.
The pork goes directly into the bag with its marinade—no extra bowls, no waiting. While it cooks, it soaks up the deep, layered flavor from a combination of hoisin sauce, toasted sesame oil, fresh garlic and ginger, cooking sherry (or preferably Shaoxing wine), and Woody’s Cookin’ Sauce.
Seasoning the Pork
*Woody’s Cookin Sauce is key here. It’s not a sugary barbecue sauce—it’s a rich base that adds smoky depth and savory balance, taming the sweetness of hoisin and bringing a rounder finish to the glaze.
While hoisin is sometimes labeled as “Chinese barbecue sauce,” it has its own complex identity. Fermented soybeans, garlic, vinegar, and spices create a thick, tangy, deeply umami paste that clings beautifully to proteins. I use Lee Kum Kee, which has just enough sweetness to balance the sharper notes in the marinade.
Once the pork is cooked, remove it from the bag, pat it dry, and brush it with a hoisin glaze. Make the glaze while the pork is cooking, just a mixture of hoisin, soy sauce and sesame seed oil. The sugars in the sauce caramelize instantly, forming a glossy, lacquered finish that looks and tastes restaurant-worthy.
Even though this dish presents beautifully, it’s not a special-occasion-only recipe. The beauty of sous vide is that it gives you flexibility. You can prep the pork in the morning and forget about it until dinner—or even marinate and freeze it in advance, ready to drop into the water bath when you have time.
Serve it with our Same-Day Fried Rice, or one of our Asian vegetables, like Szechuan Green Beans. It also works alongside Asian roasted vegetables. Fresh cilantro is the only garnish it truly needs—its brightness lifts the whole dish.
This recipe is tailor-made for busy lives. After the pork has cooked, you can chill it in its sealed bag and refrigerate for up to 3 days before finishing. When you’re ready, just reheat in the water bath (or let it come to room temp), glaze, and sear.
For weeknight convenience, pre-portion the marinade and store it with the pork in vacuum-sealed bags in your freezer. When you’re ready to cook, go straight from freezer to bath—just add about an hour to your sous vide time.
This is one of those dishes that gives you dinner party results with almost no active time. And once you taste it, you’ll be glad it’s so easy to repeat.
Hoisin Pork Roast Sous Vide Recipe
Note that you can also sear this on an outdoor grill.
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Hoisin Pork Roast Via Sous Vide
Equipment
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Ingredients
- 24 ounces Pork loin
~~ — Marinade — ~~
- 2 tablespoon Woody’s Cookin’ Sauce
- ¼ cup *Hoisin sauce
- 1 tablespoon Sherry
- ½ teaspoon Sesame Oil
- 2 cloves Garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon Ginger paste
~~ — Glaze — ~~
- ¼ cup *Hoisin sauce
- ½ teaspoon Sesame Oil
- 1 teaspoon Soy sauce
~~ — Garnish — ~~
- 1 teaspoon Sesame seeds
- ¼ cup Cilantro, leaves and stems
Instructions
- Mise en Place
- 24 ounces Pork loinPut the pork roast into a large sous vide immersible bag.
- 2 tablespoon Woody’s Cookin’ Sauce, 1/4 cup Hoisin sauce, 1 tablespoon Sherry, 1/2 teaspoon Sesame Oil, 2 cloves Garlic, 1 teaspoon Ginger pasteMix the marinade ingredients together and add them to the bag. Move the roast and marinade so that all the roast gets covered. Seal the bag.
- Put the sealed bag into the container and insert the sous vide immersion cooker. Set the cooker for 135 °F (57 °C) for 1 1/2 hours, Add an additional 30 minutes if the roast is frozen.
- 1/4 cup Hoisin sauce, 1/2 teaspoon Sesame Oil, 1 teaspoon Soy sauceWhile the roast is cooking, mix the ingredients for the glaze.
- About 5 minutes before the roast is done, set the grill on and heat it to at least 600 °F (316 °C) degrees.
- Remove the roast from the bag and wipe as much moisture as you can off. The garlic can stay.
- Brush the roast with the glaze completely.
- Put the roast on the grill and heat it for 30 seconds on each side. You can turn it a quarter turn to make hash marks if you prefer.
- 1 teaspoon Sesame seeds, 1/4 cup CilantroRemove the roast from the grill and garnish it.
- Enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
Transcript
Good afternoon and welcome to the Good Plate’s kitchen. Today we are making an Asian pork roast that we’re going to put in the sous vide.
Now this is kind of interesting because this is a frozen pork roast. And what we’re going to do is we’re just going to open up the bag, put the seasoning inside and then we’re going to sous vide it. And I’ll show you how to do that.
Let’s introduce you to the ingredients first. We have hoisin sauce. Sherry. Sherry. And sesame seed oil. This is something that is absolutely amazing for barbecue. This gives amazing, amazing flavor. This is cooking sauce from Woody’s. And you can’t… the easiest way to get it is just to go to Woody’s and get it from them. Okay? And then we have chopped garlic. And we have ginger. I like using this instead of fresh ginger because this is a lot easier. I don’t have to peel it or anything else like that stays in the refrigerator. It’s great.
Okay. Okay. Now we’re going to make the sauce. And you can see I put a little of this in there. I don’t have very much left. So I’m just putting a little in it just a
little.
Okay?
Because this is going to go sous vide.
So we… we’re going to make it a lot of
the sauce later.
This is just going to go into the sous vide
bag.
There’s a hoisin sauce.
We’re going to put that in now.
It’s about a teaspoon and a little bit
of… sherry.
If you had Shaoxing wine on hand,
I would definitely use that instead.
But this will work in a pinch.
And of course, next
is… sesame seed oil.
Now we’re going to add the ginger.
Don’t need too much.
Okay.
And the last thing we’re going to add is
the garlic.
This is chopped garlic.
There you go.
Stir it up.
Okay. Take that
aside. Open this. Okay.
There’s my pork post.
And take this.
Put this inside.
Oops.
All right.
I’m going to mush it up in there.
So every piece gets some
Now I’m going to seal this.
I’ll be right back.
Okay.
As you can see, now it is nicely sealed.
And then we’re going to put in this…
sous vide.
Right back and set that up.
Okay.
And this is my sous vide machine.
Your sous vide machine is
probably different for mine.
But basically what we’re going to do is
we’re going to set the temperature.
And right now, you can see that this is in
the water.
It’s in the water.
Right?
Okay.
So now we’re going to set it.
Okay. We’re going to set
the temperature for… 140.
Oops.
Okay.
Yeah.
You can see one.
I’m going to set it to 135.
Okay.
135.
That’s good.
Okay.
Now we’re going to set the time.
I’m resetting the time for…
two hours.
Okay.
And now…
Okay.
And here’s the roast.
And it goes.
Okay.
There we go.
That’s ready to go.
And now we’re going to turn it on.
There we go.
And in two hours… come
back and this will be done.
And I’ll show you what else to do.
Okay.
And we’re back.
And it is time to put that the roast has
been in the sous vide.
It’s fully cooked.
Now it’s time to make it
look good and taste. Okay.
As you can see, there is a lot of liquid
in here.
So we need to get that liquid off.
Because if there’s a liquid stays,
it just means that…
it just means that the
pork will boil and not brown.
So we have some paper towel here.
I’m just going to wipe it off a little
bit.
There’s all that garlic that we put in
there.
That’s mine if it’s locked.
Okay.
Now that I’ve done that…
it’s nicely.
That’s nicely done.
And now I’m going to brush it with the
sauce that we made a little earlier.
See?
I’m going to like that.
Make sure I get all of it.
Both sides.
Okay. That’s ready. Now let’s
see how hot our friend is here.
We have our infrared thermometer.
This thing is great for finding out how
hot something is.
You just point.
This is 642ish.
Right.
604.
Yeah.
This is very nice and very, very hot.
Okay.
And now we’re going to take the roast.
And we’re going to put it…
on the grill.
We’re going to put it about 30 seconds on
each side.
And there’s one side.
Listen to that sizzling.
You’re going to turn it a quarter.
Like this.
Get a nice hash mark on there.
Very professional.
Very nice.
Impress your guests
Let’s turn it.
Beautiful.
And the other side.
A bit more sauce on there.
Turn in the quarter time.
And I’m going to hold it for this one.
Just like this.
Beautiful.
And the other side.
Look at that! Isn’t
that gorgeous.
That’s that.
Alright.
Now this is done.
Okay.
And we’ve taken it off of the grill.
It is absolutely beautiful.
And we’re going to put some… a little
bit of garnish on it.
This is sesame seeds.
So we’re going to put a few sesame seeds
on there just to make it look nice.
Right.
And a few cilantro leaves.
There we go.
This is perfectly done.
We’re going to go eat this now.
And we’ll see you next time on the good
plate.
Thanks for watching.
Yum, yum.
