<p>Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.</p>

Grant Crilly

<p>Temperature control isn’t as critical for plant foods as it is for meats, seafood, and other delicate muscle foods, but it’s worth exploring the science behind cooking plants to develop best practices—with or without a sous vide machine. It’s really all about undoing the “glue” that binds plant cells together so that your teeth can easily push them apart. Raw vegetables require quite a bit of force to cleave, but overcooked vegetables are mushy because too much glue has been undone. Sous vide allows us to cook at a temperature a bit below the boiling point of water so there is less risk of under- or overcooking your vegetables. Furthermore, sealing your plants before cooking in water helps retain natural plant sugars that would otherwise be diluted in a large volume of cooking water. That means brighter color and fuller flavor, every time.</p>

Simple Sous Vide Vegetables