Sous Vide for Everybody

Long, slow cooking breaks down collagen to render even tough cuts such as chuck or pork shoulder extremely tender. It also eases the daunting task of cooking for a holiday meal or dinner party since large quantities of food can be prepped hours in advance and held at the perfect temperature until serving time.

Clip the corner of the bag to the side of the container with a binder clip, allowing remaining air bubbles to rise to the top of the bag. This step is important because air is a poor conductor of heat and too much of it insulates the food from the hot water bath. Removing air gives the food better contact with the heated water, so it cooks more qui

To “pasteurize” is to heat food to a temperature for a certain amount of time in order to reduce enough of the pathogens to deem it safe. We often pasteurize in sous vide cooking.

(though not always; you can also sous vide in glass jars, and eggs can be cooked right in their shells) and

It’s important to rapidly chill foods if you’re planning to keep them in the refrigerator

Once the bath is up to temperature, gently lower the bag into the bath. If the ingredients in the bag have a tendency to float, weight the bag down (see this page for weight options).

You can sous vide in a Dutch oven, a large saucepan, a stockpot, or a large plastic container. We call for a 7-quart container in most of our recipes. In some of our recipes, we cook large cuts of meat, like our Peppercorn-Crusted Roast Beef. For these recipes, we recommend investing in a 12-quart container. (Cambro containers are inexpensive and e

Open one corner of the zipper and release any remaining air, and then reseal the bag. To prevent cold spots on the food, make sure the bag isn’t touching the sous vide machine or cooking vessel. If cooking with multiple bags, make sure they aren’t pressing up against each other.

The low end of the range gives the ideal result in the least amount of time, and the upper end of the time range is the limit to which that food can be cooked without any negative impact. If a recipe does not have a range, it’s important to hit the exact target time.