Tonight we were trying to be environmentally responsible and use up stuff in our freezer.  We found a vacuum-sealed package of chicken breasts and decided to try to cook them sous vide.  According to the cook books we have, you can cook frozen food directly with sous vide (without thawing) but you just have to add extra time.  So we turned on our sous vide bath machine and put the (frozen) chicken in once the water got up to the right temperature (140 degrees Farenheit).  And yes, you can cook frozen food directly with sous vide!!! The only tricky thing is figuring out how much “extra” time to cook it because usually there is a range of time to cook normal (i.e. non frozen) food.  So for the chicken breasts, the normal time was 1-4 hours at 140 degrees.  The cookbook said to cook it an extra 30 -60 minutes if it was frozen.  But what does that mean? Do you cook it 1 & 1/2 hours? or 4 & 1/2 hours.  We decided to cook it 4 & 1/2 hours (because no one likes raw chicken), but honestly that was a little much.  Probably could have stopped at 2 hours.

After we cooked the chicken in the sous vide water bath, we grilled it a few minutes each side to give it a little more texture (and to make it look better).  We also roasted cauliflower and sauteed spinach with garlic.  Delicious–but next time we cook frozen chicken, only 2 hours maximum.