What is Sous Vide?
Sous Vide (pronounced Sue-Veed) is the art of cooking food in a vacuum sealed container in a water bath that is carefully temperature controlled by a precision cooking device. Once only the secret of professional cooks, with modern tools and technology, Sous Vide cooking is not available to the masses. It is amazingly simple and produces outstanding results.
Recommended Sous Vide Tools
There are a few essential tools required to use the Sous Vide method. The following items are the actual items we use at home to cook amazingly delicious food:
Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker | Bluetooth | 800W
Sous vide cooking is much easier than you might think, but it requires a precision cooking element. One of the most affordable and top-rated sous vide prevision cookers is the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Prevision Cooker. This device is so easy to use. Not only does it cook food to a perfect temperature, it can be controlled by an app on your phone. This is the first sous vide tool that should be on your list.
LIPAVI Sous Vide Container – Model C10
While it is possible to attach your Sous Vide precision cooking element to a traditional pot, it’s a lot easier to use a Sous Vide container. We highly recommend the LIPAVI Sous Vide Container – Model C10 – 12 Quarts – 12.7 x 10.3 Inch. The Anova prevision cooker fits perfectly, and the 12 Quart model is large enough for most family meals.
LIPAVI Sous Vide Rack-Model L10
It isn’t 100% necessary to purchase a Sous Vide rack, but it definitely makes cooking a bit easier. Without a rack you might find your bags floating around the water bath. After a few frustrating attempts trying to keep bags in place without weighing them down, we decided we’d try the LIPAVI Sous Vide Rack – Model L10. The marine quality stainless-steel will stand the test of time – rust will never be an issue. The rack is VERY affordable – and we wouldn’t consider cooking sous vide again without it.
C10L-AP Lid for LIPAVI C10 Sous Vide Container
Just like the LIPAVI Sous Vide Rack, we weren’t really sure if we needed a lid or not. If you’re going to purchase a lid, we recommend the C10L-AP Lid for LIPAVI C10 Sous Vide Container, with cut-out for the Anova Precision immersion circulator. The lid does come in handy if you’re going to be cooking for a really long period of time and you don’t want to add water back to your cooking bath. The lid is a very inexpensive item, and is a great complement to your Lipavi Sous Vide cooking system.
SO-VIDA Sous Vide Container Sleeve For The Lipavi CL10
The last piece we added to complement our Lipavis Sous Vide cooking system was the SO-VIDA Container Sleeve. This is made from high-grade neoprene (think diving suit) and helps save electricity (less heat loss from the container), allows for quicker heating times (better insulation), and protects all surfaces when using your Lipavi cooking system. The only complaint from using this is that it’s harder to see the food as it is cooking. This really isn’t an issue once your trust the cooking times with your Anova precision cooker.
FoodSaver FM2000 Vacuum Sealer Machine
If you research sous vide cooking you will see that a vacuum sealer machine is NOT required. It is possible to use Ziploc storage bags, or even plastic bags and food clips. After our first few attempts cooking we quickly decided that we were going to try out vacuum sealed bags. Regular bags were tough to get air tight and we did have a few “leakers”. We looked into a number of different options for a vacuum sealer machine and landed on the FoodSaver FM2000 Vacuum Sealer Machine. This top-rated machine has been very easy to use and the quality is great. One recommendation is to heat-seal the bag TWICE after vacuum sealing. This provides additional protection during the sealing process. This particular unit also comes with a few sample vacuum seal bags – you will need to purchase more! Of all the sous vide tools on our list – we’re enjoying this one more and more every day.
FoodSaver 1-Quart Precut Vacuum Seal Bags
Last but not least – if you go down the path of buying a vacuum sealer machine you need to buy the bags. We tried and recommend the FoodSaver 1-Quart precut vacuum seal bags. The quality is great, and we won’t prepare food sous vide again without them.
Sous Vide – Good Luck!
Well, there you have it! These are all the sous vide tools you need, so what are you waiting for – let’s go! We personally use all of these tools ourselves and couldn’t be more impressed with the quality of the products and the quality of the cooking they yield. We have one final recommendation: SOUS VIDE for EVERYBODY. It’s full of great information that will help you along on our journey in cooking Sous Vide!
Also, check out our post on 13 amazing & tasty sous vide steak recipes.
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