Sous Vide Chicken Breasts

It's a cooking method that involves sealing food in an airtight vacuum sealed bag, which is then submerged in water and heated at a low temperature.

The food inside the bag cooks gently over a long period of time.

While sous vide cooking takes a long time, the results are consistent and out of this world! When cooked using the sous vide method, meat becomes incredibly tender and succulent.

It's also a very simple cooking method with barely any clean up afterwards. You just need to empty the water from the machine, dry it and... hey presto! Perfectly cooked chicken breast with minimal fuss.

The words “sous vide” mean “under vacuum” in French. Lots of people get confused about how to pronounce sous vide. In fact, many foodies just call it a "water bath" as a way of avoiding looking silly!

It's easy though. The correct way is “sue-veed”.

Sous vide takes precision cooking to a whole new level. It takes a scientific approach to cooking food to perfection. The idea is to ensure that a piece of meat is cooked evenly throughout, without any overcooking.

Take boneless skinless chicken breasts as an example. It's said that the optimal safe temperature for cooking chicken breasts is 165ºF (74°C). When you cook a chicken breast in a normal way, the heat reaches the outside first, moving towards the center.

While the chicken is reaching optimal temperature in the middle, the outside will continue to cook, going past the optimal temperature. This means that, in order for the chicken to reach a safe temperature in the middle, it needs to be overcooked around the outside.

When you cook chicken sous vide, you remove the influence of air or water over the chicken. The chicken breast is cooked at a very low, specific temperature, meaning that the chicken is immersed in the heat and cooked completely evenly throughout.

Sous vide chicken breast ensures that the meat is cooked as much on the outside as it is on the inside.

However, sous vide chicken breasts miss out on that delicious browning that you get from frying or roasting chicken. Known as the Maillard reaction, it's when amino acids within the meat react with reducing sugars to form a caramelized flavor. That's why, typically when sous vide cooking chicken breast, you'll finish it off with a quick sear in a pan.

The very first type of sous vide was created in 1799 by a British physicist named Benjamin Thompson. The brainy Brit, who was born in Massachusetts, was developing a machine for drying potatoes when he decided to try slow cooking a joint of lamb in his new invention.

Apparently Thompson was blown away by the taste and succulence of the lamb. He remarked in a diary that the meat was cooked to perfection.

Still, it wasn't until two hundred years later that vacuum sealing became a commonly used cooking method.

It's no surprise to discover that modern sous vide came about in France.

After all, the French have been pushing the boundaries for generations when it comes to the pursuit of perfect cooking. However, you might be surprised to know that sous vide wasn't created by one person, but by two people independently, each with different aims.

In 1971, Bruno Goussault began looking for a way to cook perfectly tender beef. Meanwhile, another scientist Georges Pralus was busy attempting to prevent foie gras from shrinking during the cooking process. He found that enveloping it in plastic minimized shrinking while keeping it succulent.

Both Goussalt and Pralus are known as the 'godfather of sous vide' – they eventually collaborated their ideas, working with a plastics company to found the modern form of sous vide.

It usually takes around two hours to properly sous vide chicken breast, although it can take up to four hours. It all depends on how many chicken breasts you are cooking at once.

Sous vide chicken breast can't be overcooked if you set the correct temperature.

Sous vide chicken breast can only be overcooked if you set the temperature too high. Set your precision cooker at 60°C / 140°F. Then finish it in a hot skillet or frying pan with a little oil and your chicken will be perfect.

No, you don't need to leave sous vide chicken breast to rest.

Normally, cooked chicken breasts need a few moments to rest. This rest period allows the internal temperature of the chicken to even out and for the meat to reabsorb the juices.

As chicken breasts rest, heat is transferred from the outside towards the middle, while heat from the outside also escapes into the air. This means the temperature gradient is evened out, giving you a juicier chicken breast.

However, with sous vide chicken, the inside and outside of the meat is pretty much cooked to perfection. So, there's no need to leave it, although you can if you need some time to plate up the side dishes, for example.

Don't worry... you can still make this recipe if you don't have a vacuum sealer.

A simple water displacement method can be used in place of a vacuum sealer. Just place your ingredients in a normal sealable food storage bag and close the zip halfway across the seal.

Then heat a pot of water with your precision cooker and lower the bag into the water. As the pressure of the water forces the air out, you'll notice the bag begin to seal around the outside of the chicken breast.

Once the bag is submerged, pull the zip fully closed. Now you're ready to sous vide your chicken!

There are so many things you can cook using the sous vide method! Salmon, steak, egg, vegetables and even ice cream! The following books will give you plenty of ideas:

Sous Vide for the Home Cook
Sous Vide: Help for the Busy Cook
Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide
The Sous Vide Recipe Book

Different sous vide dishes vary in terms of cooking times. Some, such as sous vide eggs, take as little as 45 minutes, while the likes of sous vide beef short ribs, take up to 72 hours.

There are plenty of advantages to cooking with a sous-vide and you can even freeze cooked food in the pouches for later use, reheat cooked food and cook food from frozen. It really is that amazing.

Yes, as long as you keep the following two things in mind.

Food temperature and timing

Keep to the correct cooking temperature and times! Pathogens, bacteria and salmonella thrive between 4°C (40°F) and 54°C (130°F), which is also known as the “danger zone” in which bacteria is supposed to thrive.

Sous vide’s cooking temperatures are slightly above that and since you’re cooking the food for longer enough germs will be killed to render the food safe.

Use quality sous vide vacuum bags

In recent years, a deeper understanding has developed over the potential risks of mixing food and plastic, especially when it comes to heating plastics that contain food.

Many scientists and chefs believe that cooking in food grade plastic at these low temperatures is equivalent to leaving a bottle of water in your car during summer.

However, special plastic pouches are available on the market today. These fulfil several specifications such as having food-grade quality to limit the migration of plastic constituents into the food, heat resistance with a softening point of between 90°C (195°F) upwards, low gas permeability to prevent freezer burn and they have enough mechanical strength to withstand robust cooking.

Yes, you can, although, if you’re cooking the chicken from frozen this will take at least 3 hours.