Sous Vide cooking and our travels

What is Sous Vide?

Sous vide (pronounced sue-veed) , means “under vacuum” in French, and refers to the process of vacuum-sealing food in a bag, then cooking it to a very precise temperature in a water bath.  It sounds complicated, but it's really simple and the tools for this have become very affordable.

How does this relate to RV life?

My RV adventures are not those of a full time RVer, but the same techniques would certainly work.  I've only recently become exposed to sous vide cooking, but it's already made our camping easier.  You can cook a surprising number of things using this method, and because the majority of the items are already vacuum sealed, once they're cooked they can be stored in the refrigerator until you need them later.

Caveat.

The sous vide cooker and cooking process require electricity.  I keep forgetting to plug my Kill-O-Watt meter in to see just how much it uses.  This might not be suitable for boondocking (dry camping) because of this electricity requirement.  So keep that in mind, since it is a factor in weather a souse vide cooker is right for you and your style of RV living.

Did we mention we cook?

I will focus on meat, since it's what I use the sous vide for most.  When we camp the routine tends to be a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast.  Dinners tend to be cooked on the grill or over the camp fire.  Sous vide can be brought to bear on these meals to help make things a little easier.

Bacon, vacuum sealed and cooked with the sous vide cooker takes a long time.  Upwards of 8 hours.  But, then it can be frozen and brought out the night before.  It only takes a few minutes in the skillet to crisp the bacon to your preferred level of crunchiness, no worries about weather you've cooked the bacon for the family member that likes it floppy long enough.

Chicken, which I love to grill, can be a little tricky to get right.  Bone in, boneless, skin, no skin.  Using the sous vide you cook the chicken until done.  Temps and times vary depending on the part of the chicken, how firm you like it, etc.  Then you store it.  Take it out, throw it on the grill and you can focus on how golden brown it is instead of having to poke it with the meat thermometer every few minutes to make sure you're not going to make the family sick.  This also makes the time required for the grilling of the chicken shorter.

Steak.  This is how I got introduced to sous vide.  A friend made steaks in the sous vide cooker.  Then, browned them in a cast iron skillet.  I have never had as tender and juicy a cut of beef in my life.  These results were with a fine cut, but I wanted to see what could be done with a less expensive cut, since the sous vide method uses fairly long cooking times it gives the meat a chance to get really tender.  I've used some pretty touch cuts of beef, and they all benefit from this cooking method.  Then you toss them on the grill to get that char grilled outside and still have a tender, moist interior.  Delicious.

Sounds complicated.

It's easier than it sounds.  All you need is a sous vide cooker and a pot of water.  The cookers come in a variety of styles, but the one I have simply clamps onto the side of your pot.  You can use a vacuum sealer or just zipper storage bags.  Really though, if you enjoy RV life and don't have a vacuum sealer I encourage you to try one.


Set the temp, the cooking time, and start.  It tells you when the water is up to temp so you can drop your vacuum sealed bags into the bath and let the cooking begin.  The cooking times are up there with slow cooker recipes for some items, which is another stable of camping in an RV for many people. Want that tender, juicy steak for the grill tonight at dinner?  Toss it into the sous vide in the morning and let the precision cooker do it's work.

What else can it do?

The sous vide process can be used to cook a variety of items.  I've done meats obviously.  Recently I used it to make mashed potatoes, which came out great and you can even use this method to keep items at a certain temp prior to serving as you prepare other items.  I picked up some canning jars (small ones) to try out some sous vide biscuits and there is even a cheese cake recipe I want to try.  Google can give you lots of cooking ideas for the sous vide.

Hacks?

There are some hacks out there on the internet where you use a cooler filled with hot water to replicate the sous vide process.  It might be a way to get a low cost introduction into the sorts of results you can get from a sous vide cooker without the upfront cost.  This article talks a little bit about it, and I'm sure there are others out there that Google or your favorite search engine can lead you to.

Final Thoughts.

I encourage you to check out the web and see what sorts of options are available in both model of sous vide cooker and things you can make in it.  I will be using both to prepare foods for the trip and possibly on the trip to handle some side dish items and possibly to experiment a little to see what I can get it to do.

Let me know if you have a sous vide and are already using it for camping.  Or other things that you recommend for making camp cooking a little easier.