What is the Sous Vide Cooking Method?
The sous vide cooking method has taken the cooking world by storm in recent years. It’s a new and innovative cooking method that helps to retain food’s natural flavors and overall integrity. Sous vide, pronounced soo-veed, is a French term translating to “under-vacuum”. It’s the process of cooking food low and slow so that its natural juices are given off, allowing the dish to retain both moisture and flavor.
When cooking sous vide, you vacuum-seal your dish in an airtight bag and submerge it into a preheated water bath. Although the process is relatively more time-consuming, it’s worth the wait as this method allows the dish to be cooked in its natural juices and flavor, thus eliminating the need for any marinades or seasonings to be added to the dish beforehand. It’s also a “set it and forget it” type of cooking, similar to cooking in a crock pot, meaning that you don’t need to constantly supervise the dish to ensure that it’s cooked the entire way through or to avoid the potential of overcooking.
How Does Cooking Sous Vide Save Kitchens Time?
The sous vide method is extremely popular today because it helps to save restaurants a vast amount of time when it comes to meal preparation. Delicious and easy-to-assemble sous vide style dishes for use in commercial industries such as restaurants are now readily available. These dishes make a great addition to any menu and also allow kitchens to avoid the hassle and time required to prepare and cook the dishes from scratch.
Sous vide prepared meals help to improve overall efficiency within the kitchen without having to sacrifice quality while doing so. They help to reduce the amount of prep work that goes into preparing the dish. They also allow restaurants to hire lower-skilled chefs and to provide overall faster service to guests. As a result, restaurants can greatly improve their output while still providing their guests with a dining experience that’s bound to impress. Another great thing about sous vide prepared meals is that they’re only being reheated, not cooked from raw, which means the time required for them to reach their serving temperature is reduced significantly. Sous vide style dishes make a great addition to any restaurant menu, as they can provide consistently cooked and delicious meals each and every time.
How Does Cooking Sous Vide Save Kitchens Money?
Not only do sous vide prepared meals help to save kitchens time, but they also help them to save significantly on their expenses. The sous vide method requires far fewer ingredients and space than traditional cooking methods, which can ultimately save restaurants thousands of dollars on both capital expenses and overall energy costs. Of course, money can also be saved in terms of the number of staff and chefs required to run the kitchen. Again, fewer chefs will be required simply because less preparation and cooking is required when using sous vide prepared meals.
The sous vide cooking technique is also great for preparing lower-grade and lower-quality cuts of meat such as pork chops, duck, or turkey. The sous vide method works to transform these tougher cuts of meat into tender and flavorful restaurant-quality meals! The secret is in how the meals are prepared, as the longer the dish is cooked using the sous vide “low and slow” technique, the better able the meat is to break down toughness of the meat. As a result, the meat comes out far more tender and flavorful than it would by using any other traditional cooking technique.
Sous Vide Prepared Meals Provide Versatility to Your Restaurant
Of course, there are several other benefits that sous vide style cooking and sous vide prepared meals can add to the restaurant industry, as well. For instance, sous vide prepared meals allow restaurants to have more versatility within their menu. When cooking using the sous vide technique, you can truly cook just about anything and everything ranging from cuts of meat to vegetables, and even to desserts.
If you’re looking for a way to improve upon your menu, or to improve your restaurant’s overall efficiency, sous vide prepared meals are a great place to start. Not only do they help to provide versatility to your restaurant’s menu, but they also help to save you time and money while doing so!
