Sous Vide Chicken Breast

I got a Joule Sous Vide from my sister for Christmas, and my mind has been blown. How is it possible that it can produce such tender, juicy morsels from a super lean piece of meat? The beauty is in the vacuum packaging and the precise sustained cooking temperature.

Marinating is key

My mom’s recipe for marinating all meats growing up was always very simple. For 2 lbs of meat:

• soy sauce (enough to coat the chicken)
• garlic powder (light sprinkling, ~1 tsp)
• black pepper (1/2 tsp)
• sugar (1 tsp optional)

And to this day that recipe never fails me. The salt from the soy sauce is a perfect brine to draw out much of the blood which I believe can make the meat tough. And you don’t actually cook with that sauce so it’s not quite as high sodium as it seems. Just drizzle a bit on to coat the meat and let it sit for a few hours or even overnight.

Timing

The Joule recommends 45 minutes for fresh (marinated) chicken breasts that are 1″ thick and this seems to work for me. It also says to wait until the water reaches the cooking temperature but I just throw it in. It takes only about 10 minutes to heat. After that, the Joule app allows you to set the timer. It also says you can let it keep going since it’ll never cook beyond that set temp, but I like to take it out right away. Juicy lean meat heaven!

Searing

Joule instructions say to sear this otherwise pale bland looking chicken, but I really don’t mind it straight out of the pouch. (Did I already mention the juiciness??) For presentation and richness, herbed butter makes a great searing sauce. I’ve now also done a few other things:

• Broil with caramelized brown sugar and Yoshida sauce, or just Yoshida or any teriyaki sauce
• Broil with barbecue sauce (we like Sweet Baby Ray’s)
• Broil with hoisin and/orchar siu sauce

Precision temperature

When you want to cook your chicken breast to that perfect texture, you set the temperature of your sous vide machine and it heats the water in your pot to that temp and keeps it there for the duration of the cooking time. Bonus is that is sounds like a calming little water fountain in your kitchen.

Vaccuum Packaging

Sous Vide cooking relies on your food being vaccuum sealed packaging. That precise water temperature makes contact with the food this way and allows it to poach in its own juices. I don’t own a vacuum sealer (people seem to talk about the FoodSaver vacuum sealers a lot) so I just use Ziploc bags and wash/reuse them.

This is the part that I’m still grappling with. The washing is annoying but at least I’m not filling landfills quite so quickly. It’s the plastic chemicals that are leaking into my food that I’m concerned about. According to Bon Appetit, even BPA free plastics leach out petroleum based chemicals that can disrupt hormones in our bodies. The amount is still unknown. Egads.

Silicone – a Safe Alternative?

A common alternative to the plastic bags is silicone, which is made from silica (sand) and considered much safer and better for the environment (when incinerated it returns to silica, carbon dioxide, and water) , so I’m considering these Stasher silicone bags. My justification in the meantime is that I’m cooking meat for less than one hour at temperatures well below boiling.

References

• Silicone vs Plastic – which is safer for people and the environment