---
title: 'Sous-Vide Like a Pro - an in-depth guide (Sous-vide series, Ep. 1)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=NkyWtgW-ySI'
video_id: 'NkyWtgW-ySI'
date: 2026-07-01
duration_sec: 844
---

# Sous-Vide Like a Pro - an in-depth guide (Sous-vide series, Ep. 1)

> Source: [Sous-Vide Like a Pro - an in-depth guide (Sous-vide series, Ep. 1)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=NkyWtgW-ySI)

## Summary

This video is an in-depth guide to sous-vide cooking, aimed at home cooks who want to go beyond basic techniques. It covers the history of sous-vide tools, essential equipment setup, packaging methods, and optimal cooking times. The host also debunks common myths, such as the idea that you cannot overcook with sous-vide, and provides advanced tips for achieving perfect sears and crispy skin.

### Key Points

- **Core Principle of Sous-Vide** [00:49] — Sous-vide means 'under vacuum' in French, but the key is precise temperature control, not the vacuum.
- **Evolution of Sous-Vide Tools** [03:40] — Immersion circulators have become small, cheap, and accessible, with brands like Anova selling for around $100.
- **Packaging Technique** [05:21] — Use sturdy freezer bags (e.g., Ziploc) and the water displacement method to remove air. Add oil for fish and shrimp to prevent sticking.
- **Recommended Cooking Times** [06:39] — Most steaks, pork chops, chicken breasts cook in 1 hour; fish fillets and shrimp in 20 minutes.
- **Overcooking Myth Debunked** [06:53] — Longer cooking times increase tenderness but decrease juiciness; the myth of no overcooking is a marketing strategy.
- **Searing Solution: Cooling First** [09:02] — Cool meat in the fridge for 10 minutes or an ice bath for 2 minutes before searing to allow a longer sear time (2 minutes per side) for a better crust.
- **Crispy Skin Technique** [10:03] — For skin-on chicken or duck, chill completely before searing to achieve crispy skin (7-10 minutes) without overcooking the meat.
- **Weeknight Sous-Vide Meal Prep** [10:51] — Pre-cook meats on weekends (1 hour), then reheat for 30 minutes on weeknights. Seafood should be cooked fresh but can be pre-seasoned and bagged.
- **Sous-Vide vs. Reverse Sear** [12:14] — Sous-vide is more flexible and less error-prone than reverse sear, especially for cooking multiple steaks of different thicknesses.

## Transcript

let's talk about sous-vide most sweet
guides don't like to overwhelm the poor
home cook with all the details thinking
that even the worst attempt at sous-vide
will likely result in better proteins
than most people are currently cooking
at home and I'm guessing that for an
average cook
they are absolutely right but if you're
watching this channel you are probably
not the kind of cook who is satisfied
with pretty good you are the kind of
person who will only settle for great
and for that even the Soviet method
requires good technique so today I will
share with you my bag of tricks that
will take your soviet game to a whole
new level in case you're new to this
here is sous-vide in a nutshell in
French the term means in vacuum but the
most important aspect of this technique
is not the vacuum but the precise
temperature if you want the center of
your meat to be 130 Fahrenheit you cook
it in a hundred thirty Fahrenheit what a
broth this completely eliminates the
need to catch a perfect moment when you
meat is done to do that you set an
immersion circulator into a pot of water
and it will keep any temperature you
want for as long as you want put the
meat into a plastic bag put it into the
water wait for one to two hours
depending on the thickness then sear and
serve why is this so revolutionary
because doneness is the biggest problem
cooks have with proteins and the Soviet
method solves that but it is not without
its challenges sous-vide food can look
and taste anemic here is an example from
a Nova's website this year you get after
the water bath can be wimpy here is a
video from America's Test Kitchen sure
that darkness is perfect but I like my
meat more Brown than that the meat can
taste dry even when cooked to a perfect
temperature is it possible that you can
overcook your meat even with sous-vide
long cooking times are a killer for
weekday nights today we'll address
and many other problems and help you
save it like a pro but first a little
history I heard about sous-vide about 15
years ago when immersion circulators
would sell for more than $1,000 and were
completely out of reach of most home
cooks of course they didn't stop some
people from going where no home cook has
gone before
I heard of grad students who would bring
home old immersion circulators that
their university labs were going to
retire and cooking them
I've heard of electrical engineers
rewiring their crock pots to turn them
into temperature controlled water bath
since I had no electrical engineering
skills and I was too chicken to cook in
old lab equipment my preferred method
was babysitting a big pot of water on
the stove with a thermometer eventually
I switched to Ken G outs brilliant huge
beer cooler method beer coolers I
insulated so if you fill them with hot
water it'll maintain it for a while of
course we didn't have to cook and beer
coolers for long about 10 years ago the
first sueded tool marketed to home cooks
hit the market it was this very big
heavy awkward and expensive box called
sous-vide supreme obviously there was
plenty of room for improvement and the
race to create the best sous vide tool
for the masses was on thanks to the
competition the immersion circulators
became small cheap and accessible to
everyone I use the one by a Nova but
there are many brands to choose from
another sells for about a hundred and
the link for it is below the video
if you use your immersion circulator
once in a while you can certainly clip
it onto the side of any large pot but if
you're planning to use it on regular
basis I strongly suggest that you get a
plastic box specially designed for this
purpose I bought a size that fits into
my sink nicely so there is no need to
move it anywhere filling and emptying
this box is a breeze I can fit at least
eight portions into it at the same time
so if I want to par cook some proteins
for the week or if I'm having a party
it's very convenient these boxes come in
many sizes and they're very inexpensive
I'll link to them below this video I
fill my container with hot water so that
I'm ready to cook almost instantly here
is the current temperature of my water
here is the temperature that I want it
to be and I can change this temperature
with this wheel by going up and down
when I press the play button the
circulator starts heating and moving the
water once the machine reaches my
desired temperature it will be and
allowed the food now that we get the
temperature covered let's talk about
packaging the food restaurants use
chamber vacuum sewers that are insanely
expensive the vacuum sealers sold for
home use like food saver that sells for
about 100 are pretty useless for this
purpose they will deform your food and
won't let you add the oil which is very
useful for some proteins my bag of
choice is the ziplock not the flimsy
sandwich bags but the sturdy freezer
bags fold the back over to keep the
zipper clean season your protein with
salt and add to the bag when cooking
fish and shrimp I find that adding lots
of oil to the bag prevents pieces from
sticking together and makes the shape
and surface of the finished dish look a
lot better I prefer a neutral oil so
that it doesn't interfere with the
flavor of the fish you'll be dumping the
soil so no need to use anything
expensive if you're putting more than
one piece of meat into a bag put them in
a vertically this way they won't tumble
on top of each other as you submerge the
bag into the water when you submerge the
bag open it up completely this lets the
water push the air out much more
effectively than if you zip it up
leaving a tiny hole keep pushing the bag
under the water until you get to the
zipper if the water is too hard for you
use a utensil to help you zip it up if
the bag sinks you did it correctly if
the bag floats you still have too much
air in open it up and try again
flip the bag to the side of the
container so that the water circulates
around it having a bag lying on the
bottom of your pot won't result in very
even cooking below this video I'll give
you the times that I like to use for
many common proteins but just to give
you an idea most steaks pork chops
chicken breasts duck breasts and other
meats that I mentioned have all s cookin
one hour and most fish fillets and
shrimp cook in 20 minutes so is it true
that you can't overcook with sous-vide
absolutely not
the longer times mean more tenderness
but less juiciness the myth that you
can't have a cook with severe came about
due to a clever marketing strategy used
by sous-vide appliance manufacturers use
it to market and new home appliance you
have to combine the exotic with the
familiar so the exotic sales pitch was
the promise of restaurant quality food
at home with no effort or skill the
familiar sales pitch was comparing the
immersion circulator to an appliance
most home cooks already had at home the
slow cooker cooking something sous-vide
will inevitably take longer than any
other method and that was not going to
fly in our Fast Food Nation so the club
marketing people told you that you could
use the slow cooker model you could take
your meat put it into the water bath in
the morning go to work come home sear it
for two minutes and the nurse surfed too
bad they didn't tell you that this kind
of steak would be very mushy and dry but
chicken method isn't yet very flexible
when it comes to meat and poultry if you
hold them in a water bath for an extra
hour - it won't make any difference
for fish and eggs that's not quite the
case if you need to hold them in the
water bath after they are done try to
limit that time too
ten minutes after that the texture will
gradually start to suffer the shrimp
will turn mushy the fish will become dry
and the egg yolks will firm up now let's
talk about searing issues the usual
solutions that you'll see people using a
really hot skillet and blowtorches Oh
personally I don't really like the
flavor that the blowtorch is gifting it
and the skillets well no matter how long
you hit them and overheat them instead
of your fire alarms nothing ever seems
to be enough because the sous vide meat
tends to use out juice no matter how
much you dry it but there is a solution
to this life's persistent problem and
that is cooling limit when the meat
comes out of the water bath it's at a
perfect temperature so every minute you
spend in the hot skillet you are ruining
that sous-vide perfection but
unfortunately one minute per side is not
quite enough to brown meat that keeps
using but all you have to do is get your
steak or pork chop out of the bag dry it
with a couple of layers of paper towels
and put it in the fridge for about 10
minutes if you meet this thick enough
stand it up so that both sides dry
evenly cooling the outside of you meat
will allow you to keep it in the skillet
for roughly two minutes per side instead
of one resulting in a much better crust
you can speed up the cooling process by
putting your bag of meat into an ice
water bath for about two minutes the
water bath will not give you as dry over
surfaces the fridge but on a weekday
night when every minute counts that
might be fine with skin on chicken and
duck I take the cooling a step further
and cool them completely before I sear
them you see to get really crispy skin
takes time and even two minutes aren't
enough you probably will need about 7 to
10 minutes and if you start with warm
chicken or duck you will either get
great meat or great skin but not both
but chill them completely and you'll get
beautifully crispy skin while the meat
warms up gently the reason that meat is
not going to suffer another cook is
because most
of the time at least 95% is spent on the
skin and the skin is an insulator
protecting you meat from overcooking I
realized that waiting for more than an
hour for your dinner on a weekday night
might not work for everyone so here are
some tips to avoid that choose steaks
pork chops chicken breasts duck breasts
that I add most one and a half inches
thick
cook them sous-vide for an hour over the
weekend when you're ready to cook during
the week put them back into immersion
circulator for 30 minutes how come the
second time around the shorter that's
because there are two reasons that we
hit omit the first reason is to change
its texture and the second reason is to
make it Pleasant warm temperature for
eating now the texture you'll take care
of that over the weekend when you
sous-vide it for a full hour so that's
done and making it pleasantly warm for
eating is not nearly as precise in
particular as the texture so if you meet
reached only 115 instead of 130 it won't
be noticeable chicken and duck breasts
are excellent choices for with the meals
since you cook them sous-vide in advance
anyway
they go straight from the fridge into
the skillet
so we're basically talking dinner in 10
minutes shrimp and fish cookin only 20
minutes I don't recommend that you par
cook them over the weekend because that
will ruin their texture it's best to
cook all the seafood only once but what
you could do to speed things up is
season them and bag them over the
weekend so that when you come home on a
weekday you can just grab the bag and
plop it into your immersion circulator a
reverse sear method is very similar to
sous-vide but instead of using a
temperature controlled water bath it
uses the oven I have covered this method
and great detail on my channels if
you're not familiar with it check out
the link below this video both sous-vide
and reverse sear have their advantages
and disadvantages sous-vide method is
much more flexible if you got caught up
doing homework with your kids your
guests an hour late your side dishes and
done no worries just keep your meat in
your water bath until you're ready
sous-vide method is also less
error-prone it does not require you to
insert the thermometer perfectly and
find the center of you meat to figure
out what is the minimum temperature and
say one of your steaks is a little bit
bigger than another if you're cooking
six takes that could be a nightmare
using the normal methods you have to
figure out when each steak is done
versus what Soviet if one steak is an
inch and another is an inch and a
quarter no problem you can cook them all
together and sear them all together the
downside of the Soviet method is that it
takes longer and requires special
equipment if you watch my reverse video
which is from about a year ago you'll
probably notice me complaining about
this year after sous-vide being that
nearly as good as after reverse sear but
I have found a solution to this problem
since then so it's no longer an issue in
the next few weeks we'll apply all this
theory to chicken duck pork chops shrimp
and fish so stay tuned don't forget to
subscribe hit that little Bell button
for notifications and if you're ever in
the Boston area maybe I'll see you in
one of my classes
[Music]