By now, we are pretty familiar with using your Anova to create the most amazingly delicious and perfectly-cooked meat, fish, and vegetables you have ever experienced. Restaurant quality meal creation at home is the box you have already ticked, but are you aware that there are also many other off-label and weird ways to use your Precision Cooker? Here is a list of our favorite eight.
Unexpected Uses for the Anova Precision Cooker
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Photo Developing - Processing photos by hand requires a very specific temperature range for the developing chemicals, and our immersion circulator fits the bill when it comes to keeping things precise. A quick search online reveals a number of devoted fans in specialty forums, as well as tutorials on how to set your kit up!
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Reheating Mother's Milk - Human or not! With an Anova Precision Cooker and its ability to heat within .01ºF/C, you can bring mother's milk to the exact temperature for it to mimic coming straight from the source. But did you know that this isn't limited to human milk alone? Janis W. sent us these pics of using her Anova to heat milk up for her baby goats!
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Proofing dough - While baking using sous vide can be a little limited, making use of the constant heat to proof yeast-based doughs in a floating bowl is a fantastically inventive way to use the Precision Cooker. And just look at these cinnamon rolls rising with 43ºC/109.5ºF heat! Photo credit: Jordanna Chord via Twitter #anovafoodnerd @marcoftec
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Making yogurt - Rich and creamy, homemade, probiotic-laden, gift-that-keeps-on-giving yogurt is amazingly easy to make with sous vide. Just a couple of ingredients including milk and a few tablespoons of live culture commercially prepared yogurt, and you are well on your way to never buying yogurt again!
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Speed chilling - Whether you want to quick-chill your freshly-cooked meats or to get that bottle of white to the right temperature faster, your Anova can help with that! Circulating water chills much faster. For that reason, when you start with cold water, add ice, and run the Anova at its lowest setting, you can chill both wine and freshly-cooked food in a flash! Check out this Reddit thread all about it.
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Heating sake - Mmmm - sushi night at home with perfectly warmed sake? #YESPLEASE! Taking a cue from Instagram #anovafoodnerd @rothwellah here, we love this inventive idea!
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Decrystallizing honey - I hate when my honey has sat on the shelf too long and gets crystallized and unpourable. I have already tried a multitude of methods to re-soften, resulting in melting bottles or sparking metallic bits from the original packaging in the microwave or far too much water wasted in the running-hot-water-over-the-bottle method. Using an immersion circulator, especially one already set up in a reusable bath, saves time, energy, water, and potentially the healthful enzymes honey comes with! Word on the street is to not heat over 104ºF/40ºC to preserve all of those enzymes, but if it is not a concern, then heating to 120ºF/48.9ºC sounds like the most effective temperature according to this fantastic Reddit thread!
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Reheating restaurant leftovers - From bringing soggy French fries back to life to resurrecting this entire bacon-and-egg-topped waffle from the freezer, using sous vide as a method to reheat already cooked food is a GREAT idea. Moisture stays locked in in the best way, and then the outside can be blasted with high heat to crisp as necessary. Either your original cooking temperature or the stand-by 140ºF/60ºC to stay within food safety guidelines are tried and true options to make your second time having a meal just as delicious as the first. Check out this amazing video from Spencer K. of our Community Forum!
Now It's Your Turn!
What do you think, #anovafoodnerd crew? Have you discovered other weird ways to use your Precision Cooker apart from the ones we've just listed? Please share in the comments, and with pictures, too.
As we learn together, we grow together, and your amazing ideas help us to better serve you. Keep us posted! And to learn more, come visit
our main site!
1 comment
Leftover steaks and roasts are perfectly reheated sous vide. Just set it for your preference, ziplock and displace, clip, and leave in for 15 minutes or so. It’s the best way to reheat a rare to medium rare piece of beef that I have found.