Are you a restaurant or catering company owner? If so and you keep an eye on industry trends, then there’s no doubt you’ve heard of sous vide at some point over the past year.
Sous vide has a ton of awesome benefits that lend themselves perfectly to commercial kitchens and catering companies. Let’s step through the key aspects that make sous vide cooking in your restaurant such a no-brainer.
Why Sous Vide in a Restaurant
Prep Whenever
With sous vide, you can do all of your prep work ahead of time. Go ahead and season your meats, get them vacuum sealed, and throw them in a fridge overnight. Not only does this give your meat an excellent chance to marinate, but it also makes transporting much easier than if you simply have packages of meat stored in other fashions. Catering companies love having everything vacuum sealed up tight so no spills or falls can ruin anything.
Flexible Cook Times
Things get hectic when you’re in the midst of a dinner rush. Once you have your cook in progress, you really only need to make sure you hit your minimum safe cook time. When your sous vide cooking a steak, there isn’t a huge difference between 90 minutes vs 120 minutes of cooking. Sous vide offers you flexibility that can make the life of your chefs much easier and they will be able to consistently churn out great meals. Speaking of consistency…
Cooking Made Easier
Since sous vide allows you to set your desired level of “done-ness” down to the degree, you can get that perfect medium-rare steak without all the guess work. If you have very particular foodies being served, you’ll be able to knock it out of the park with the level of control sous vide brings to your kitchen.
Awesome Results that Drive Sales
Sous vide is still relatively new to the restaurant scene and likely something your patrons can’t get most other places. Introducing them to the magic of sous vide steaks will be something certain to bring them back for more, help spread word of mouth, and rake in those valuable 5-star reviews online.
Sous Vide Necessities for Commercial Cooking
Sold on bringing sous vide cooking to your kitchen? Excellent, here’s what you need.
Cooking Containers
You’ll also want to make sure your sous vide machine is rated for the amount of water you put in the container – most sous vide machine are rated for at least 30L, which is a pretty huge container. The one pictured above is ~18L. A tall stockpot may also work great for this purpose.
Sous Vide Machine
Next up, you need a sous vide machine to do your cooks. If you’re working in a restaurant, then you likely need a commercial grade appliance as mandated by your local health code. You can check your specific local health code requirements but to be safe, we recommend sticking with PolyScience. PolyScience is a leader in the sous vide space and the only manufacturer I’m aware of that makes commercial grade sous vide machines.
The PolyScience CHEF Series has ETL Commercial and ETL Sanitation approval, so it should be fit for any kitchen or food business. While these units are more expensive, you’re getting your money’s worth for the reliability that PolyScience delivers.
The only other commercial sous vide machine on the market is the PolyScience CLASSIC sous vide machine. It’s more expensive but features a more industrial design than the CHEF series. It also have a few features you may appreciate in a hectic kitchen – three programmable temperature presets, and a temperature knob which lets you quickly adjust the temperature. The knob is much easier to use than the touch-arrow-buttons most sous vide machines come with.