Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker 3.0 (WiFi), 1100 Watts

I have seen a lot about sous vide, but I mainly ignored it as another fad. Recently, I saw it mentioned in my weight loss group for batch cooking chicken breasts to cut & use in recipes without drying out the chicken. I can cook moist chicken breasts in the oven, but I use a thermometer to keep it at 165. It's tedius to monitor with multiple sized breasts that we buy in bulk at Costco. I can use the pressure cooker, but it varies on how tender it comes out since breasts vary in size when batch cooking. In addition, since Covid, we've been having a lot of problems with the toughness of the beef carried at Costco, prime or choice, doesn't matter. We can pay more for better quality elsewhere, and we have done this for better results, but I'm newly retired & we're cooking for a family of 5. I prefer the Costco prices. Soooo, I ordered this cooker to see if it was as magical as everyone has said.First, the app is FREE. There are a lot of complaints about the price of the premium version of the app. The free portion is very basic. You connect to your wifi & you can set the temperature & the timer and you can start the cooker from the app. I find the app easier to use than pushing up and down buttons on the unit itself. The app allows you to just type in the numbers. My old fingers are more easily able to type buttons on my phone than messing with the unit. It's not fancy so when your timer is up, you will NOT get an alert from the app. Your cooker will let out a few beeps and stop. If needed, it would be better to use your phone timer or an oven timer instead of the app if you need to more closely monitor the cooker. I personally have zero desire to pay for the premium portion of the app which apparently provides recipes & allows you to select the recipe & it programs your cooker. How hard is it to type in numbers for temp & time? Hit Google and you will get a million options for recipes cooking your meat. Use Reddit, Facebook, etc, etc, for recipes. Anova even has suggested times and plenty of informative articles on their website for free. You don't need to pay for an app.Right now, I haven't bought anything but the cooker. We have a large, oval Le Creuset Dutch oven which works perfectly so far. We have a vacuum sealer, but I'm just using the cheaper freezer lock bags from Costco which seem to work fine. I have been clipping the bags onto the sides of the pot, but the meat seems to stay underwater without the clip. I cover the pot with a piece of foil & a dish towel. I haven't seen any evaporation yet and this may not be needed for the short cook times I've done so far.First, I made 2 chicken breasts for my lunches. I did 148 degrees at 1 hour and 30 minutes. I then seared the chicken breasts in a skillet for some added flavor. Right now, I'm batching cooking 4 breasts for my lunch, but I did presalt them & let them sit for about a half hour prior to cooking. You still need to brine your meat if that's your preference. I won't be searing the chicken & I will just shred it & portion it for chicken sandwiches for my lunches this week.For my second attempt, I had my husband buy the cheaper top sirloin steaks from Costco. He salted them & let them sit overnight. I added Montreal Steak Seasoning & plopped them in bags for about 3:10 at 132 degrees. Hint... If you start with hot water out of your tap, it takes less time for the cooker to get your water to temperature. My husband seared the beef in a cast iron skillet with butter & they turned out so tender. Next time, I'll probably drop the temp to 130 to get it a bit more medium rare. I included a picture, but I didn't slice the meat for staging as I was anxious to eat.If you're looking for fool-proof tender meat, sous vide is the way to go.

I wouldn't call myself a foodie but I like to cook. I had read about the sous vide method of cooking. I found this affordable sous vide machine and thought I'd give it a try. I have trouble searing fillets on a grill or pan. How do you get the meat to temperature to eat without burning up a lean cut. Answer sous vide. Ideally use a vacuum bagger but you can just squeeze the air out of a gallon food storage bag. Immerse the bag and contents in a pot with the sous vide machine set to your desired cooking temperature. 90 minutes later voila done perfectly. Well not yet you will need to sear the meat to make them look appetizing but it is easy. You don't need a kit any pot that will hold enough water to cover the meat will work. This one works stand alone or with an app but the app isn't necessary. If you want to make perfect steaks buy this sous vide machine.

I have owned a few sous vide over the years. I really love how magical they are at making perfect steaks and roast beef with even the most economical cuts.I liked the following features of this particular model:1. It is very easy to program using their free app. I did not have a problem with losing signal when I wandered around the house like others have reported. I like that I could follow its cooking time and water temp on my smartphone.2. The clamp that holds the sous vide to the water container is easily removable from the sous vide. The one I had previously had a spring loaded clamp but eventually it cracked off the sous vide and I had to throw it away. It had a screw that holds the clamp to the pot and another that holds the sou vide securely. It is easily removed.3. I liked that it can be disassembled for easy cleaning.4. It has a highly accurate thermostat from what I could tell. At least the medium rare roast beef I cooked was perfectly medium rare throughout. It gives readings to 1/10 degree F.For those who aren't all that familiar with sous vide cooking, many restaurants use them to get perfect, slow cooked meals, especially meats done to perfection. And you don't need to be hovering around the oven to make sure it doesn't overcook. If you're busy and can't get to it for 30 minutes, it's still a good.I once cooked a eye of chuck, a tasty but chewy cut of beef to medium rare for several hours to give it time to essentially "tenderize," then used it for Beef Wellington and it was as delicious! It came out as tender as tenderloin at 1/3 the cost!There really couldn't be an easier way to cook a fancy perfectly cooked meal than with this "set it and forget it" device.