Yes, Chef

When I hear ‘sous vide,’ I generally picture something like a super tender steak or maybe a perfectly runny soft-boiled egg.

But I was curious: what else can you do with a sous-vide cooker?

And, as is the case with just about every question that’s ever entered my mind, someone else thought of it first, put it on Reddit, and received an array of answers from simple to genius to outright bizarre.

At least, that’s how I would categorize the responses to this post titled, “Favorite dishes that incorporate sous vide (without it being just a cooked piece o’ meat)?”

The top comment is amazing, though fairly… uhh… niche:

We used our sous vide to set exact temps to bathe our bearded dragon. Worked like a charm. 102.5 for 30 minutes he was loving it.

Further down, you get something a bit more widely applicable yet unexpected:

I love making alcoholic infusions, like homemade bootleg limoncello. You take a standard pint sized mason jar, add a cup of sugar, the juice and zest of one lemon, and fill it up with vodka to the bottom of the threads. Cook at 150F for three hours, let cool, strain out the zest, and bottle. Double the recipe and cook time for a quart sized jar.

Then there’s this mouth-watering tidbit:

Sous vide Pears in almost anything. Honey and walnut. Port. Balsamic glaze and pine nuts.

And, of course, further down, with fewer upvotes, there’s some very practical advice (from the delightfully named user, meh_69420):

You can cook packaged gnocchi. Their the whole damn sealed tray in at 180 for 30-45 minutes. Tender but not soggy like they can get if you boil them.

Of course, if you want some more tips, you could always subscribe to Anova’s premium subscription service for $1.99 per month.

Hahahahahahahaha! Just kidding! No one’s gonna do that!

But you know a good place to actually check for some sous-vide tips? Maybe the comments on this sale! That is, if you previous sous-vide purchasers what to hop in and contribute some of your own ideas.

Or heck, just get it and figure out what you’ll do with it later.

After all, it’s starting to feel a bit more like fall, which means soon it’ll start to feel a bit more like winter. And winter, when you’re stuck inside for days at a time, is the perfect time to screw around with a new kitchen appliance and recipes that require lots of time and minimal skill.

Wow, kind of ending on a bit of a downer, bringing up winter like that, huh?

So let’s just remember the good times. Like when that person said their sous vide cooker is a bearded dragon bath. That was pretty funny, right?