Which sous vide do you have? I may need to break down and get one to make meals much quicker.
Just for the record - sous vide isn't really quicker per se. It's rare that you are cooking anything shorter than an hour. I think it makes things "easier" though. For starters, once you understand time/temp/pasteurization you can just dial in on the temp you want something to be and not really worry about it being over or under cooked. For example, we have settled on 155 degrees for chicken breasts. You can cook them at a lower temp (as long as you cook them long enough), and they will be more moist, but something about the texture is a bit off-putting to us. I'll do 10 breasts or so at a time, and then let them go for an hour and a half or so. That cooks them safely - but it never goes above 155 - that temp stays constant. Then I will ice bath them and freeze them. Then during the week, we'll defrost and then warm/brown in a skillet and put over salad. You don't have to worry about them getting to a certain temp at that point- they are already cooked to a safe temp. Just get them to the color and temp that you want, and they are ready. Much tender and juicier than the old cook until they get to 165 degrees method - which usually means you overshoot and end up dried out at 172 degrees.
Ultimately, to me the advantages are:
1. You can cook to a lower temperature, which means more tender and juicier meats. Pork loin at 138 degrees is light years better than at 145 degrees.
2. You know your food is safely cooked - as long as you understand pasteurization is a function of temp and time. It's really easy to google and find out what temp and time you should cook something.
3. You can hold food at a constant temperature. You can cook ribs for 24 hours at 160 degrees. As long as you don't lose power, the ribs are going to stay at 160 degrees for the 24 hours.
4. Since you are already vacuum sealing the food, you can cook a large amount of something, ice bath, then freeze or fridge it to eat later. It's been cooked to a safe temperature - so all you have to do it warm it back to the temp you want it for eating. I'll sous vide a batch of turkey burgers at 155 degrees and then freeze. When we want to have them, I will stick in the fridge to defrost, then smoke on the grill to get them up to the temp we want them - brown them up a bit - melt cheese on them. As long as I don't let them go above 160 degrees or so on the griill, they are still plenty tender/moist. No need to overcook just to make sure they are "done".
