“We do NOT need a hundred and something dollar piece of kitchen equipment! We rarely cook!” I’ve been wrong few times in my life (*insert a massive amount of sarcasm*), but in this instance I have to completely eat my words (pun intended).
We bought a sous vide machine at a surprisingly opportune time, after my partner researched it for six months. We had just moved to Seattle and I was teaching myself to cook for the first time after living on Manhattan takeout for 4 years. I was dealing with the frustration of getting meat to be edible and (dare I dream) tasty. It was either underdone and I was worried I’d hurt someone or overdone and dry as the Sahara.
I was also dipping my toe into eating keto and having trouble consuming enough protein to hit my daily goal to maintain my muscle mass. Enter sous vide. I’ll go into detail on what sous vide is and does below, but in a nut shell, a sous vide machine allows you to perfectly cook meat and fish with an insanely low amount of effort (my favorite amount…). I’m in love with it and I’ve never been happier to be wrong. So let’s get into it!
What is sous vide?
Sous vide is a method of cooking that involves sealing food into a plastic pouch and submerging it into water that is heated by the sous vide machine to the optimal cooking temperature. Using this water bath technique allows for precise and even cooking throughout your food.
Sous vide is French for “under vacuum.” Fancy restaurants actually vacuum seal the bags they use around their sous vide food, but, as I’ll discuss below, that’s actually not necessary for the home cook. Sous vide cooking has been around the restaurant scene for 45 years, but has only recently become more financially accessible for home kitchens.
Why do I love to sous vide?
Sous vide is my favorite cooking method because I love to eat and I love the #SlugLife. I can season a piece of meat or fish, throw it in the sous vide, set a timer and walk away. When I come back an hour or so later I have restaurant quality, perfectly cooked, delicious food to enjoy for a fraction of the cost of eating out. I didn’t factor this cost savings into my original sous vide benefits calculation, but since buying one, my restaurant spending has plummeted – all because I can now eat the same delicious food without leaving my apartment…or my pajamas…
Sous vide cooking is also a great introvert hack. I much prefer dinner parties at peoples’ houses where we can leisurely sit and chat over wine for hours instead of a rushed feeling dinner at a restaurant. Sous vide cooking cranks kitchen prowess up exponentially with no additional work. It’s made me a dinner party diva! Friends at our dinner parties often exclaim “This is the best steak/salmon/chicken I’ve ever had!” Damn right.
Which sous vide machine do I use?
I have only owned 1 brand of sous vide so I can only speak from that experience, but we have an Anova Sous Vide Machine and have recommended it to all of our friends who ask for our recommendation. All of them now rave about how much they love their Anova and we have been more than happy with not only Anova’s product, but their customer service.
When we were young and foolhardy (read: 2 years ago) we were not as careful with our sous vide machine as we should have been. We would stand it up on the counter while we filled our sous vide container with water. This is a bad idea because it’s not designed to stand up on its own in that way.
So after tempting fate for several months, the machine decided to teach us a lesson and fell over onto the counter HARD…and then, understandably, stopped working. It was outside of the 1 year warranty so we were fully prepared to pay for the repairs and if needed buy a new one.
We explained what happened to Anova customer service and despite being outside of warranty and the ‘injury’ being totally our fault, they sent us a brand new sous vide machine at absolutely no cost. I was in love. So, in addition to an awesome product, that’s why we rave about Anova and recommend their sous vide machines to our friends.
What supplies do I use?
- Sous Vide Machine
- Plastic Container: We use an 8 quart version of this large plastic container, but you don’t need to buy a special container for your sous vide machine. We have also used large pots while traveling (as seen above) so we don’t have to lug a container across the country. Obviously feel free to try out using a pot before making an additional purchase. We made the purchase because it’s easier to screw the sous vide machine to a flat container, but you can make it work with most pots just fine.
- Freezer Bags: As I mentioned, actually vacuum sealing your food is not necessary. We use these freezer bags for all our sous vide adventures. Instead of vacuum sealing, it’s easy to force the air out of the bag by lowering it into the water bath and then sealing it – this is called the “water displacement method.”
- Binder Clips: We use regular binder clips we had lying around to hold the top of the freezer bags to our plastic container so it doesn’t slip into the water bath, but obviously feel free to use whatever you have around the house.
- Tongs: When we have a large piece of meat that’s a little big for our 8 quart container, we use tongs to weigh it down so it stays under the water line. Feel free to use whatever similar item you have at home…or just don’t try to cook giant hunks of meat that the Flintstones would be proud of like our impatient asses 🙂
- Spices & Herbs: I’ll describe below the different spices and herbs we use depending on what type of meat we’re dealing with, but this Steak Seasoning is the spice we use most often (besides standard salt and pepper) and we don’t just use it on steak. It’s delicious.
What are my favorite sous vide foods?
After several years of experimentation, we believe that meat, fish and eggs are the best candidates for sous vide cooking. We have tried making many different types of vegetables, such as mashed potatoes, and have not found a significant difference in taste or texture, so we’re sticking to carnivore sous vide cooking for the foreseeable future.
Below I’ve outlined the temperature, cooking time and techniques we use to cook our favorite types of meat. Please note that all temperatures are in Celsius because it’s what the majority of the world uses and it’s good to learn. Another great benefit of sous vide is that it doesn’t really matter if you cook meat from frozen or room temperature. If it’s frozen, you can just add 30 minutes to the cook time. Easy!
How To Sous Vide Steak
Temperature: 54C
Cooking Time: 1 hour, 1.5 hours from frozen
This is our approach to getting medium rare deliciousness. For seasoning, we use a generous helping of steak seasoning and put fresh thyme sprigs into the sous vide bag. After the steak is done cooking, we quickly sear it in a saucepan with butter or leftover bacon fat to get that sexy maillard reaction.
How To Sous Vide Burgers
Temperature: 54C
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Sous vide is perfect for making thick, juicy burgers. We shape our own burgers out of ground beef and generously season them with salt and pepper before putting them in the sous vide bag. After we take them out of the sous vide bag we let them rest for at least 10 minutes (and up to 30) before searing them. We start the sear with the side of the burger that was facing up while resting because that side is dryer so it will sear more and taste better while keeping the moisture on the other side.
How To Sous Vide Pork
Temperature: 66C
Cooking Time: 1.5 hours, 2 hours from frozen
This temperature creates a beautiful, medium well slab of pork. We season our pork first with salt and pepper, then steak seasoning (it’s everywhere!) and then add thyme sprigs into the sous vide bag (yes we love thyme…). After our allotted time is up, we sear the pork first in oil for 2-3 minutes and then quickly in butter on high heat for optimal flavor. Then we often eat our pork with pesto – Nom nom.
How To Sous Vide Salmon
Temperature: 50.4C
Cooking Time: 30-45 minutes for < 1 inch thick fillets, 45 minutes-1 hour for > 1 inch
Sous vide is great for any fish, but AMAZING on salmon. I’ve had the best salmon of my life from my own kitchen and I don’t mean to beep my own horn, but I’m a bit of a restaurant salmon connoisseur. Every time my Mom would visit me in Seattle, we would eat salmon out daily. Then I had her taste our sous vide salmon and that tradition came to an abrupt end. In fact, she just bought a sous vide machine herself she was so impressed.
To achieve prime deliciousness, we salt the salmon and add 1 TBSP olive oil and a few sprigs of thyme into the sous vide bag. Feel free to throw some lemon slices in the bag too if you’re feeling fancy. After cooking, we serve it with lemon wedges that we squeeze over the fish to take the taste to the next level.
How To Sous Vide Chicken
Temperature: 70C
Cooking Time: 1-2 hours, 1.5-2.5 hours from frozen
We are super rebellious 😉 and have started using the same steak seasoning on chicken as well. If we’re feeling fancy, we might throw some fresh rosemary in there. Depending on what we’re using the chicken for, after it’s done cooking, we either sear it quickly in butter or, if I’m creating my famous nacho chicken (pictured below), I put it right into the oven to bake it quickly with a shitton of cheese and jalapeños before topping it with bacon – YUM!
Where Do I Find Sous Vide Recipes?
Conclusion
Learning about sous vide cooking has been a complete game changer. We host dinner parties weekly where our family and friends rave about our better than restaurant quality meat and fish and we are able to eat absolutely delicious food while saving money and barely lifting a finger – wins all around in my book!
Have you ever tried sous vide cooking? Is there a kitchen appliance that changed your life in surprising ways?
I had never heard of sous vide before following your Instagram. Everything looks amazing, thanks for the write up!
Really?! That’s so cool! Happy you enjoyed it – next time you’re in my part of the woods I’ll cook you something 🙂 .
Starbucks has sous vide eggs if you wanna sample.
There is nothing like sous-vide beef! We borrow our friends’ sous-vide machine periodically and cook up a beef tenderloin. Absolutely delightful. Makes great carrots too!
Right?!? Ooh borrow the sous vide – I love it! Didn’t even think of that lol. And great carrots you say? Is that because they get really soft or does it do something else to them?
They do not get really soft. They go in whole with lots of butter and seasoning, and come out firm and delightful!
Fascinating – excited to try them out!
Wow, I had no idea this was a thing, and frankly, I had no idea what sous vide was – cool! The crockpot was a big changer for me, when I realized I could make a nice tasting batch of lunches for a week simply by throwing a bunch of ingredients in to a crock pot and letting it sit for a while. I don’t use it much in summer because of the heat (though here in Wisco we’ve had an uncommonly cool August, usually the hot and muggy season for us), but look forward to using it come fall!
Yay! Crockpots are AMAZING! Happy to hear you’ve avoided the muggy-ness this year. Bring on the one pot meals!
Cool! I thought the sous vide machine is another big pot like a crockpot. We don’t have any space for another big appliance, but this is pretty small. I might have to get one for Christmas.
I’m pretty good with meat. I need help with fish, though.
The sous-vide can be a big pot like a crockpot. Purple uses an immersion appliance. But you can get a self-contained unit. We use the “SousVide Supreme 11L Water Oven”
I had no idea that sous vide machines existed like that – COOL! I just looked up your water oven. Thank you for teaching me something new 🙂
If you get one for Christmas – let me know how you like and if it steps up your fish game!
You could also get a food saver to go with the sous vide then you could vacuum seal as well. I save quite a bit every year with my food saver by buying meat on sale and then vacuum sealing and deep freezing for the whole year. Sometimes I add marinades before sealing to have a few easy meals ready
Just looked up what a food saver is – if I see myself staying in one spot long enough to get a chest freezer or something I’ll definitely look into it! That’s a sweet rotation plan and oooh marinades!!
i put a whole rabbit in there once and it was delicious. i did it right from frozen but we use the vacuum bags. if you even get your hands on some duck legs they practically confit themselves too with some diced shallots and a little mustard powder.
i got the rig for xmas about 5 years ago and wondered how much we would use it. it turns out to be quite often. the only vegetables that i thought slightly improved there were carrots but only a little. here’s to meat forever!
OH MYYYY we haven’t cooked rabbit in ours yet. Missed opportunity! And duck legs – you’re making me drool over here. I know what’s on the top of my shopping list next time!
Happy to hear your xmas rig has stood the test of time (and usefulness). Second vote for sous vide carrots – I’m going to have to try them for sure now! I’m not a huge carrot fan so this might be a game changer for my carrot consumption (up from 0) 🙂 . #MeatForever!
One question… when they sent you a new unit for free, did they know you ran a blog?
I didn’t have a blog at the time so that would have been impossible 🙂 …unless they can see into the future!
Okay you’ve inspired me to use my sous vide 🙂
Do you have any tips on how to pick out budget conscious tasty meat? I especially know nothing of steak or pork.
Yay!! And you just gave me an idea about another article 🙂 . One of the best parts of sous vide is that it can make the cheapest, toughest meats delicious. We literally buy the cheapest, on sale meat and throw it into the sous vide and then impress our guests.
Even really tough roasts – we just cook them for longer and sometimes overnight until they’re super tender. So my tip is: see how cheap you can go 🙂 . We haven’t found a downward limit personally. We shop at QFC (a Kroger brand) and Trader Joes for our meat – TJs in particular has a pork tenderloin that we love. Feel free to start with that!
We’re also big fans of sous vide and The Food Lab at the Brewing FIRE household. I’m always trying to integrate science into my kitchen life. I’ve even brewed beer with the Anova a couple times! Do you like yogurt? It’s really easy to make your own homemade yogurt with the same setup, though it’s smoother and not very “Greek”.
I knew I liked you for a reason 😉 . Adding science into the kitchen is so fun! I love how it seems to bring order to the chaos that I thought cooking was. A BREWED BEER?!?! How did that turn out?? I hadn’t even thought of that…I like homemade yogurt without all that sugar the packaged ones have in it yet – I hadn’t thought of making that either! You’re blowing my mind. I’m going to try it!! Thanks so much for stopping by.
The beer turned out quite good, I even submitted it for a competition and it got good remarks. The only issue is that some of the steps of the sous vide brewing (brew vide) process are more cumbersome than on my normal equipment, so I haven’t done it as much lately. Definitely check out yogurt recipes. Essentially, you use the last couple scoops of your previous yogurt culture to make a whole new batch, and the only ingredient you need is milk. Fun stuff.
OMG brew vide is the best phrase ever. Congrats on your good competition remarks!! I haven’t even brewed normally so I’ll leave brew vide to the experts for now. And that yogurt sounds simple! My favorite kind of recipe 🙂 . Thanks dude!
I had no idea what this was until today! I fell in love with Starbucks sous vide egg bites this year but didn’t know what it meant. I started making my own at home by baking. Maybe this will yield better results. I want to get a small electric smoker first though. I love smoked meats! I don’t find myself needing much sauce with smoked meats.
So happy I could share! I keep thinking everyone knows about it, but y’all are proving me wrong! If you have a friend who has a sous vide that you can borrow I suspect the results will be even better than baking since you can be a lot more precise. And oooh a smoker sounds awesome – I’m all about that carnivore life!
Mr. Mod has been really into learning to sous vide but since I eat my meat pretty much burnt lol (sorry-not-sorry to all chef’s around the world), he’s had little enthusiasm from my part 🤦♀️.
I will be supportive for his endeavors by sending him this great detailed post! Perhaps I can join him in trying to sous vide salmon or even chicken as I think my main issue is with beef that I basically like crispy lol! Thanks for the ideas and great guide.
Lol – to each their own, seriously. Let me know how he likes it! And totally try some salmon or chicken, but also if you like beef crispy you can crisp it up in a pan after cooking it to your liking (even if that’s well done 😉 . Thank you for the comment lady!
I think this is the second time you’ve written about this? I really thought about buying one the first time, but now I’ve done it! I bought one like yours for $100 and free shipping. I knew about Kenji, but I didn’t know about his sous vide recipes. I’m really looking forward to trying them. Besides salmon, I’m going to try the carrot recipe too.
Hi! This is the first time I’ve had a post dedicated to sous vide, but I mention it a lot here and on my Instagram since it’s how I cook all my meat. Congrats on trying it for yourself! Let me know what you think. And yay Kenji!
It is nice to see that sous vide is catching on. I first discovered sous vide courtesy of a black Friday sale on Amazon I believe 4 years ago. I read what it did and thought I would give it a try (and I’m glad I did).
It allows any home cook to achieve restaurant type quality meals (and to be honest my fiance thinks the salmon I make is even better than most seafood restaurants we go to so I spoiled her with it).
It’s telling that for the friends that I have cooked meals for with sous vide, the majority (if not all) have all gone out and bought one for themselves. The sous vide machine does all the work and you get all the credit.
I wrote a post about sous vide last year as well and gave a great recipe for salmon (based on your salmon picture mine may seem more like salmon sushi type cooking). I like to do it at 115 degrees for 20 min. The meat is transluscent and not opaque and flakes off with a fork. Absolutely incredible.
I also make and store sous vide egg bites like starbucks for a fraction of the cost.
Because you can cook longer and at lower temperatures you can even make medium rare pork that is perfectly safe to eat. It is the time at elevated temperature that is important rather than the higher temperature for faster that typically cooking methods use.
Right?! I’m so happy the price keeps coming down to be more accessible. Sounds like the most successful Black Friday sale I’ve ever heard of 🙂 . Totally with you on better than restaurant quality salmon. Yumm! Same on the friends we have over buying their own too lol! 100% ‘conversion’ rate so far 🙂 – unintentionally too. Now I’m tempted to try salmon at your temperature…I like sushi quite a bit! Ooh do you have a sous vide egg bite recipe you prefer? I’ve only made them in muffin tins in the oven so far. Haven’t tried medium rare pork either HMMM! You’ve given me a lot to try when I get back from FinCon – thank you! Also you should charge sous vide companies to use this tagline “The sous vide machine does all the work and you get all the credit.” Thanks so much for stopping by!
I too would like to hear about how to do the eggs!
Lol. I’m finishing up my prep to leave for FinCon tomorrow (my first and I’m quite excited).
The salmon I do really has been the best I’ve had (and I consider myself a foodie and eat at quite pricey seafood places all the time). I have the recipe I use for that in a post on my website (search sous vide or not sous vide (play on Shakespeare)).
For the sous vide egg bites its pretty easy and I do them in about batches of 13 or so:
You need 4 oz glass Mason jars with the canning type lids
I chop mushrooms (portabello works great) in small cubes and then cook them down till tender in pan).
I typically use a dozen eggs and add sour cream (I don’t measure it but use the squeezable type and guess maybe 1/3 cup or so. Blend till smooth.
Spray jar with Pam prior to filling (important so doesn’t stick)
Put mushrooms in bottom. Then I add real bacon bits, shredded cheese (I prefer aged cheddar). Fill with egg mixture. Sprinkle parsley or cilantro on top)
Seal and cook at 169 for 60 min.
I kept them in fridge for 3 months or more and does fine. To reheat just put in sous vide at 169 for about 8 min.
Goes amazing with waffles and syrup.
Sounds delicious, thanks for taking the time.
Yes – THANK YOU!! This is awesome. See you at FinCon!
Oh my god I made pork in the spud vide. Probably the most delicious thing I’ve ever made. Thanks so much for the inspiration.
20 hours at 165
YESSSSS!!! So happy it’s delicious and that I could spread the yummy word. I don’t think I’ve done pork for 20 hours before – I’m on it!! Thanks so much for the update – this makes the work that went into this post worth it 🙂 !
I made the salmon tonight! It was insanely delicious. Better than any salmon I’ve ever had. I’m stunned that I can actually cook now. 45 minutes for the salmon.
THANK YOU!!! I think now I’ll actually be able to stick to keto
YAY!! Hearing that makes me so happy!!! And ooooh keep me posted on the keto situation…
I’ll keep you updated. I’m on day four now and it’s going well. I’m really hoping this is what finally works for me. I feel like I’ve tried everything. I don’t have a ton of weight to lose (maybe 30 pounds), but I want a good relationship with food. Quick questions about keto: Did you up your carbs to 50g once you got to maintenance or have you stayed at 20g? How long did it take you to become fully fat adapted?
I made the burgers is the sous vide last night and the texture was great. I think I need to add to some good sauce to make the flavor better.
I feel you – I also felt like I tried everything before keto to lose weight. This is the only way I’ve been able to lose weight and keep it off. It’s also given me a healthy relationship with food for the first time (previously I’d only been able to lose weight by starving myself, which obviously isn’t sustainable). Good luck with your 30 lbs!
I keep my carbs around 20g even in maintenance because when I experimented with going higher I got bloated. Some people can go higher and feel the same, but not me. I’d suggest experimenting once you get there to see what works for you.
It took me a full week to feel normal again after switching my diet. If you’re still feeling off you’re almost there!!
YUM those burgers sound amazing. I want a burger now lol…And yes I love a good sauce. Good luck! Let me know if you have any more questions!
I meal prepped burgers and froze them. Just doing 1.5x the time made them perfect. So delicious, easy and you can prep a bunch all at once!
That’s AMAZING!!! So happy they turned out well – mmm now I want a burger!