A Sous Vide Guide to Cooking Poultry | The Tool Shed

Whether it’s chicken, turkey or duck, poultry meats are a popular choice for any meal. It can provide the scrumptious simplicity that you need when feeding your family during the week as well as the delectable extravagance you want for a dinner party.

Like with most foods, sous vide is a great method of cooking poultry and can provide some fantastic results that you just won’t be able to replicate through other methods. So, if you’re interested in how to get the best out of your poultry dishes, read on for our guide to cooking poultry.

The Basics of Sous Vide

If you’re not already familiar with the process of Sous Vide Cooking, it is very simple. The food is cooked submerged in water baths which are heated and kept at a consistent temperature, allowing the food to cook evenly, leaving meats particularly tender and juicy.

The Basics of Cooking Poultry

Most poultry is prepared and cooked in a similar way, but you’ll need to adjust cooking times based on the size of the bird. There are a few things you should consider when cooking different birds, such as how you cook white meat and dark meat. White meat tends to cook faster than dark meat and isn’t as rich and fatty. This means that it’s important to know the difference when you’re cooking from a recipe that requires one of the other.

Chicken is the most popular of these meats as it is cost-effective and is tender and juicy when cooked well. Other birds have a stronger, richer flavour so are more of an acquired taste, such as duck and goose. It’s important to consider these flavours when you’re cooking in order to create a meal that works well with flavours that complement one another.

Cooking Poultry Sous Vide

Sous vide is an excellent method of cooking poultry as it allows you to cook the meat slowly and evenly, resulting in a perfectly cooked, tender and juicy cut. Getting the timing and temperatures right is important as this will ensure that you get meat that is cooked all the way through without drying it out. The great thing about using the sous vide method is that you have a bit more flexibility than if you were dry cooking. You can download our handy guide to cooking times and temperatures here to use when cooking poultry.

Can I Cook A Full Bird Sous Vide?

Yes, you can cook a full bird sous vide, but it needs a little prep work first. As you are vacuum packing the bird before cooking, you’ll need to remove all of the air from the bag and if you place a whole bird in, the chest cavity will be difficult to remove air from so it wouldn’t be able to submerge in the water.

Spatchcocking the bird has two benefits. Firstly it removes the cavity from the bird and secondly, when you finish the bird after its taken a nice soak in the water bath, more skin is exposed so you get extra skin to crisp up (should you wish but what a treat).

We find a pair of butchers scissors best for the job. Simply cut out the backbone and sternum of the bird and firmly flatten it out. Voila, a full bird ready to go.

Should you wish, you can always use some butchers string to sew the bird back together for presentation at the table but we find people to keen to get stuck in to go to the trouble.

Sous Vide Poultry Recipes

Put your new Sous Vide knowledge to the test by trying out one of our poultry recipes from the selection below:

• Basic Sous Vide Chicken Breast

• Boneless Chicken Thighs, Cooked Sous Vide, Charred Raw Vegetable Salad, and Honey Vinaigrette

• Chicken Wings with Sous Vide Reblochon Pomme Purée

• Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

• Chorizo Stuffed Chicken Supreme with Jewelled Black Beans

• Harissa Spiced Chicken Thighs, Charred Spring Onions and Lime

• Sous Vide Breast of Chicken with Potato Gnocchi, Courgette Ribbons and a Tomato and Olive Sauce

• Sous Vide Chicken and Wild Mushroom Sausage with Wild Garlic and Chicken Glace

• Sous Vide Chicken Caesar Salad Lettuce Wraps

• Sous Vide Chicken Wings

• Sous Vide Chicken with Comté Cheese Gnocchi, Girolle Mushrooms, and Sauce Vin Jaune

• Sous Vide Chicken with English Mustard and Broad Beans

• Sous Vide Coq Au Vin

• Soy-Glazed Boneless Chicken Wings with Home Cured Kimchi

• Tequila Chicken

• Whole Spatchcock Chicken, Cooked Sous Vide

• Duck Egg-Yolk Cooked Sous Vide in Burnt Butter and Miso, Served ‘On Toast’

• Sous Vide Goose Breast with Macerated Blackberries and Sloe Gin

• Pan-Roasted Quail, Herbs and Fried Egg

• Sous Vide Boned and Rolled Turkey Leg – with All the Flavours of Christmas

• Sous Vide Turkey Breasts

• Sous Vide Turkey Breast, Red Cabbage, Pear Tarte Tatin, Gorgonzola, Chestnut

• Turkey and Mushroom Risotto

Cooking poultry is made even better when using the sous vide technique, giving you perfect results every time. Why not try out one of our recipes to put your culinary skills to the test, and if you don’t yet own a sous vide machine, take a look at the models we have available in our sous vide shop.