Sous Vide Without a Vacuum Sealer

Another good sous vide tip, this one courtesy of Tim Sebel from Failures and Success in Molecular Gastronomy and Sous Vide. It deals with a good way to get all the air out of your sous vide pouch if you don't have a vaccum sealer.

Rather than using a food saver to create a vacuum, I have been using heavy duty zip-loc bags. Getting the air out is easy! Just fill the bag with whatever you're cooking (liquids included)and then submerge the bag in water. The bags I'm using have the zip below the lip of the bag, so the zip gets submerged just underwater. The pressure of the water forces all the air out of the bag. Then zip the bag up while the zip is just submerged. If you're worried about getting water in the bag, zip it up just as you submerge the zip under water.

This makes it easy to use liquids with your cooking. It's also great if you want to try out Sous Vide with less up front equipment. I have not yet had a chance to do a comparison next to a food saver to see if spices permeate food better with a food saver, but that's an experiment I have planned.

If you have sous vide tips or tricks of your own send them our way and we'll help you share them with everyone else.

This information, as well as over 100 recipes, is available in our book Beginning Sous Vide which you can get at Amazon.com or as a pdf download.

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This article is by me, Jason Logsdon. I'm an adventurous home cook and professional blogger who loves to try new things, especially when it comes to cooking. I've explored everything from sous vide and whipping siphons to pressure cookers and blow torches; created foams, gels and spheres; made barrel aged cocktails and brewed beer. I have also written 10 cookbooks on modernist cooking and sous vide and I run the AmazingFoodMadeEasy.com website.

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