If you thought cooking with a slow cooker was the easiest and convenient way to slow cook your food since the food is cooked slowly over several hours, often while you are at work or other event that keeps you away from the kitchen for 6 or more hours, then you haven’t discovered sous vide cooking.
Pronounced “soo veed,” this decades old French slow cooking method uses a precisely temperature controlled water bath to cook the food for several hours.
Unlike a traditional slow cooker that cooks food for 4-8 hours at around 220 degrees F and the food can be burned or over cooked if cooked longer than 8 hours, a sous vide water oven cooks the food at about 130 degrees F, and whether the food is cooked for 8 hours or 18 hours, it will never be burned or over cooked.
What is Sous Vide Cooking?
While you may never have heard of sous vide, it was actually developed over 200 years ago in 1799 by Sir Benjamin Thompson. This slow cooking method was re-introduced in France by Georges Pralus in 1974, and has become a mainstay in professional kitchens world-wide.
The term sous vide actually translates to under pressure, since the food is placed in a bag that is vacuum sealed to remove all the air, then the bag is placed in a water bath and cooked slowly for several hours, while the steam and heat created by the circulating water cooks the food perfectly, without burning or over cooking.
Sous vide cooking was once reserved for restaurants or other professional kitchens, since the sous vide water ovens were very expensive and generally only available to professional kitchens, generally costing over $1,000.
Sous vide water ovens are now available for home kitchens, and the prices range from as low as a few hundred dollars to over $1,000.
In this article, we will introduce you to the best sous vide water ovens available for consumers that are under $500.
1. Sous Vide Supreme Water Oven
- Sleek all-in-one design
- Precise temperature control to 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius)
- Energy efficient engineering
- Quiet operation
- Push button simplicity
- Lid doubles as drip tray for pouch transport
- Universal food pouch rack for easy positioning of cooking pouches
- Counter-worthy style in a small footprint (about the size of a bread maker
- Insulated lid blanket to retain heat
- Perforated bottom grill designed to generate thermal turbulence
- Maintains precise temperature for hours without over cooking food
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2. Gourmia GMC680 11 in 1 Sous Vide & Multi Cooker
• Capacity: 6L (6.5 Qt)
• Tempered Glass Lid
• Non-Stick Aluminum Pot
• Stainless Steel Housing
• LCD Pedestal Display
• Blue LED Indicator
• Rating: 1500W/120V/60Hz
• Polarized UL Plug
• Built-In Cord (0.8m)
• Heating Plate:1250W/120V
• ETL Listed
• Includes Bonus Cookbook & Accessories Kit!
3. Oliso Smart Hub Induction Cook top with Sous Vide Oven
- A complete closed system.
- The induction burner produces up to 1500W for extremely fast heating.
- Can maintain temperatures with as few as 2W.
- Induction burner heats the pot directly.
- Induction burner can be used separately to cook food quickly.
- The Oliso PRO Smart Hub is an advanced induction cooktop intended for easy yet powerful control over cooking processes.
- The Oliso Smart Hub does the work of a gas or electric stove, range, water bath, slow cooker, yogurt maker and more.
4. Hamilton Beach Professional Sous Vide Water Oven
- Dual functionality, can be used as a sous vide water oven or traditional slow cooker.
- Sous vide water bath temperature can be set from 104°F to 210°F (40°C to 99°C) and can be programmed to cook between one and 72 hours.
- Slow cooking gently cooks food over a long period of time, retaining its flavor and moisture.
- 6 quart nonstick metal vessel.
- Sous vide rack included.
- Programmable controls.
- 5 year limited warranty.
5. Ivation Sous Vide Precision Cooker
- Power rating: 120V/60Hz
- Power output: 520W
- Temperature range: 100°F – 205°F (37.7°C – 96.1°C)
- Temperature accuracy: +/- 1 degree
- Timer: 30 min. to 99 hrs. in 30 min. intervals
Ken Weiss
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