Pressure Cooker | How to Use Sous Vide (Ninja® Foodi® Pressure Cooker)


For more great Instant Pot recipes, please visit InstantPotEasy.com

French for “under vacuum”, Sous Vide cooking is the process of slow cooking food that’s sealed in a plastic bag, in an accurately …

9 replies
  1. UnpleasantChuck
    UnpleasantChuck says:

    If you're experienced cooking sous vide with a conventional circulator you'll quickly recognize the limitations presented by this half-baked implementation of the sous vide function on this muti-cooker. In my estimation, it's not much better than cooking in your dishwasher or on the engine block in your car. Let me explain…

    I've owned two of these – the Ninja Foodi FD302. Upon attempting my first sous vide experiment, I became familiar with two of its more serious functionality limits: time and temperature. Sous vide is all about control of both, but tight temperature control is of paramount importance. Cooking time can be wildy variable, from a matter of minutes to, literally, days!

    This device will (supposedly) control water temperature in a range of 120 to 190 degrees F. As it happens, I wanted to sous vide chickpeas as my first experiment, and the specified temperature is 195 degrees. Close, no cigar.

    Cooking time is adjustable in increments of 15 minutes up to 24 hours. Seems like a lot, maybe, but brisket or corned beef are often left in a sous vide bath for 48 hours or more! As far as I'm concerned, this is another fail. But those long cooks are outliers, and there are many, many foods that can be very successfully prepared in times ranging from 1/2 to 3 or 4 hours.

    Before I mention the most serious issue with the Ninja, I'll cite a couple more deficiencies. First, the water doesn't circulate, aside from fluid dynamics associated with the water temperature differential from bottom to top. A true sous vide device will have a mechanism, such as a motorized impeller, to circulate the water all around the package containing the food, which…

    … MUST REMAIN FULLY SUBMERGED AT ALL TIMES, NOT FLOATING ON THE TOP! To be cooked evenly and safely, The bag needs to have water completely surrounding it. With the Ninja, you might be able to put the food under the rack, and then place a weight on top of the rack to hold it under water. Not ideal, but much safer than leaving half the bag out of the water if it's inclined to float. To be fair, this issue must be addressed in any sous vide cooking situation.

    Saving the worst for last, the temperature control of the two Ninja Foodi FD302 cookers that I own is horrendously inaccurate. True sous vide cooking tools feature precise control, usually within a half degree or thereabouts, and it's held close to the specified temperature for the programmed cooking time. The reason that I have owned two of these is because I found the temperature to be off by 25 degrees the first time I tried to use it, and contacted Ninja's customer service, who arranged to replace my unit with another one. Sadly, the replacement was just as bad, which indicates to me that this function is poorly-implemented and one cannot expect to prepare properly-executed sous vide cooking with this multi-cooker.

    To underscore the importance of precise temperature control, a medium-rare steak is specified to be cooked to approximately 129/130 degrees F. When I set my Ninja for 130, it heated the water to 155 and then happily beeped for me to "Add Food". I don't think so…

    I've learned to like this Ninja for it's air fryer and pressure cooking functions, but I'll use my conventional sous vide circulator stick for anything requiring sous vide cooking techniques. This is a compromise, at best…

    Reply
  2. og jenny
    og jenny says:

    It looks like the food was floating. Can i cook souse vide on correct temperature on Bake /roast setting or slow cook setting. I just bought mine and it doesn't have souse vide button. Very dlssapointed lt was so expensive. The price gouging on appliances, since covid is unreal

    Reply
  3. Ido Goldberg
    Ido Goldberg says:

    Amazing! I'm wondering if it's possible to cook sous vide manually also with the 7.5L version (the larger version) which I'm interested in and doesn't have a dedicated sous vide program (for example by setting a fix temperature for X time) ?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *