How to Meal Prep with Sous Vide

Sous vide for meal prep is a busy person’s dream of homemade meals come true. I’m glad you’re here! It’s like most kitchen appliances that can be left unattended, but better. It gives you full control over how much prepping (and cooking) you want to do. 

You can get started on juicy carnitas, season chicken for fajitas but not cook them yet, prepare spicy tequila for next week’s margarita night, and so much more. Not everything has to get done or cooked on the same day, and the versatility is refreshing. 

Once you start, you’re never going back. Whether you use it for ready-made reheatable meals, or for prepping big meals for special occasions, this article will show you why sous vide is a game-changer. 

What is Sous Vide?

Sous vide is a French cooking technique that consists of vacuum-sealing ingredients and slow-cooking them in water at a low and steady temperature for a prolonged time. In other words, it’s like cooking in a water bath. It helps infuse the ingredients with all the flavors, tenderizes proteins, and ensures perfect doneness. 

What Type of Food Can You Meal Prep with Sous Vide?

Fortunately, sous vide meal prep ideas can include all your favorite fruits, veggies, and protein types. This includes strawberries, spinach, eggs, flaky salmon, tuna steaks, pork, turkey, chicken, beef, and whatever your heart desires. If it undergoes a heated cooking process, you can sous vide it. Some common exceptions to the rule may be pasta or rice, but it depends. Baked goods can’t be made in the sous vide either. 

Sous Vide Tools You Will Need

You won’t get anywhere without the immersion circulator, so that’s the first thing you should be looking at. Choose one with your favorite features, that’s also within budget. I also recommend getting a budget-friendly one to get started, learn the ropes, and potentially get a higher-end one if you end up liking the sous vide world. 

• Immersion circulator: This is essentially the motor, thermometer, and brain of the entire operation. It looks fairly similar to an immersion blender, minus the sharp blades at the bottom. Immersion circulators keep the water moving gently and maintain it at an exact set temperature. This is why it’s so reliable for standardizing recipes where you want the resulting texture to be the same every time. Some models are connected to apps that let you set cooking times, give recommendations on temperature, and contain sous vide recipes to get you started. 
• Containers: Special, heat-safe containers for sous vide cooking come with built-in adjustable racks and a removable lid. The racks keep the bags submerged in water, preventing them from floating to the top. The lid helps the circulator maintain the water’s temperature and prevents dust from getting into the water. The lid isn’t always necessary, but it could be a nice-to-have depending on how long the cooking time is. If you don’t want to get the container, use a large stainless steel pot instead. 
• Vacuum sealer bags: Pre-cut sealer bags are the most convenient option. You can buy them in different sizes and use them depending on what you plan to cook. They’re made from a sturdy, transparent plastic that is heat-safe. Some people suggest swapping them for Ziploc bags but I don’t recommend it since they’re not made to withstand hot temperatures for long periods of time and can release toxins into the food. 
• Vacuum sealer: This machine sucks the air out of the vacuum sealer bags and then seals them with heat. The food looks like it’s well-laminated and tightly wrapped in plastic once the bags are sealed. Removing the air from the bags prevents them from inflating with steam and popping.
• Weights: These are also called “sous vide sinker weights”. They’re only necessary if you don’t use a sous vide-specific container for cooking. Sinker weights are stainless steel mesh squares that weigh anywhere from 1-5 pounds. You place them on top of the vacuum-sealed bags in the water to keep them submerged. 

Benefits of Bulk Cooking for Sous Vide Meal Prep

Doing sous vide meal prep is a wonderful way to get bulk cooking done for the week and even months ahead. It’s like regular meal-prepping on steroids because the cooking method is effortless. Once you’ve filled and sealed the bags, let them cook in water until ready. You can either enjoy the food immediately, refrigerate it for later, or freeze it. Some recipes, like steak or barbecue ribs, might require a quick sear once they’re out of the bag. For the most part, however, meals are ready to be served immediately. 

Sous vide bulk meal prep also works when you want to get started on parts of a recipe without necessarily cooking the whole thing yet. For example, tenderizing lamb for spicy curries or braising pork loin for stews. When you decide to make the full dish, the hardest, most time-consuming part is already out of the way.

Finally, sous vide prep meals are great for portion control and easy reheating. If you fill the bags with serving-size portions (you can weigh them if you want), you just need to reheat the meals in the microwave or a pan when you get home from work.

Sous Vide Meal Prepping Process

Sous vide is pretty straightforward once you get past the learning curve of the equipment and process. All you need to do is cut the protein, season the meat, bag it, and then decide whether to freeze it raw or cook it straight away. That’s it!

Break the Meat Down Into Portions

Slicing, separating, and portioning the meat is one of the most important steps if you’re doing sous vide meal prepping. While supermarkets sell pre-sliced steaks and cuts, the most budget-friendly way to do bulk cooking is by buying whole chunks of meat and slicing them yourself. Make sure you remove any excess fat and silver muscle lining. If you don’t trust your knife skills, ask your butcher to prepare the meat for you. 

Season the Meat

Depending on the dish, you’ll need to season or marinate the meat. Salt and pepper are the most basic seasonings. However, garlic powder, onion powder, Cajun seasoning, Creole, taco seasoning, and even Italian seasoning are popular too. Fresh and dried herbs, such as parsley, basil, and rosemary can be added as well. 

If the recipe calls for a marinade, now’s the time to add it in. It can be a pre-made one or a homemade one. What might a homemade marinade look like? If it’s a Greek-style one, common ingredients include plain yogurt, parsley, mint, olive oil, dill, lemon juice, and red pepper flakes. An Asian marinade will probably have soy sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, chili oil, and rice wine vinegar. Look up the recipes and add the required ingredients to the bag to start infusing flavors.

Bag the Meat

Open the vacuum sealer bags and add the ingredients in serving-size portions. Seal with the vacuum sealer according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Make sure it’s completely well sealed, otherwise water will get inside it and create a mess.

Cook or Freeze the Meat

Once the food is bagged and sealed, you must decide between freezing it while still raw or cooking it and then freezing it. Both methods are great, but the one that’s best for you depends on your lifestyle. How much time you have to cook during the week might help you define which one to choose. 

If you freeze the sealed but raw recipes, you still need to worry about setting aside time on weeknights to throw the bags in the sous vide container until warm and ready. Simple recipes might take 1-2 hours, but others can take up to 8 hours. 

Cooked and frozen recipes, on the other hand, offer a quick solution for your weeknight dinner menu. You just need to reheat it or throw the cooked ingredients into a pot or baking dish to complete the cooking process faster. A good rule of thumb, though, is if it’ll take you a similar amount of time to cook the recipe from scratch versus reheating it, don’t sous vide it. 

Sous Vide Meal Prep Recipes

Sous vide is about way more than fancy steaks and complicated recipes. In fact, the only way to get the most out of the equipment is by exploring simple, everyday recipes with it. To help you get started, check out these dishes: crispy wings for game nights, glazed carrots for the holiday season, juicy carnitas for Cinco de Mayo, eggs for Sunday brunch, and jalapeño-infused tequila for July 4th.