If you’re already cooking sous vide, you know that the hardest part can be choosing the right time and temperature—particularly for less common ingredients. That’s where we come in. We’ve done all the testing and research for you, which means no more scouring the internet for information. Our development kitchen has tested these times and temps to a T and put together all of our favorite options. Want to access times and temps for so many more sous vide recipes? Get the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/update-app app] today and search away. With over 150 foods to choose from, [link https://www.chefsteps.com/joule Joule Turbo] helps you figure out what to cook and how to do it perfectly. Goat? We’ve got that. Flounder? You know it. Every kind of steak you can think of? Consider it (perfectly) done.

Holidays are all about tradition, even though observing traditions often trumps tastiness. And there’s no better example than the Thanksgiving turkey, which is often dry, overcooked, and bland. This year, we’re asking you to consider stepping away from tradition and making the best dang turkey you’ve ever had. The key to success? Using sous vide. A precision temperature-controlled water bath will deliver excellent results, every time. Not only will the white meat be plump and juicy and the dark meat silky and rich, the skin will be a deeply burnished brown, and it’ll be crisp. The secret is to treat both the breast and legs as if they’re tougher cuts of meat—because they are! A long, low-temperature cook will transform them into centerpiece worthy of the name. The best part? No guessing when they’re “done,” and you can hold them for hours and hours in the water bath and serve them whenever you’re ready. EDITORS’ NOTE: We’ve updated this recipe to be more user friendly and more convenient to prepare. The leg quarters are cooked for a shorter amount of time on their own (8 to 12 hours, rather than the original 12), before lowering the sous vide temp, adding the breasts, and cooking them together for a longer amount of time (16 to 24 hours longer, compared with the original 8 to 14 hours). This gives you a much bigger window for finishing and serving your Thanksgiving feast anytime in the afternoon/evening.

Steak, man. There’s nothing like it. And the best way to cook a steak, bar none, is to cook it sous vide. Sous vide steak means perfectly cooked steak, every single time. No need to worry about “ruining” a pricey dry-aged ribeye; no need to babysit or fuss over your beef to cook it just right. Seal the steak in a bag, drop it in a precisely calibrated temperature-controlled bath, and all you have to do is take a minute or two to finish it on the stove when you’re ready to eat. Our foolproof sous vide method for cooking tender steak cuts produces consistently excellent steaks, cooked to exactly your ideal level of doneness with a burnished sear on the outside. The result is big beefy flavor of meat complemented by aromatic notes of garlic and herbs. [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/your-ultimate-guide-to-grilling-cuts Choose your steak], measure its thickness, choose your preferred level of doneness, and then all you have to do is set the temperature of your sous vide bath and bag up your beef. (For the most flavorful steak, we recommend [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/presearing-for-sous-vide presearing the steak] before putting it in the bag, but it’ll be plenty tasty without that step.) Pull out the steak when you’re ready to eat, give it a quick sear, and serve it up with a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-pomme-puree silky pomme purée] (or a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thrice-baked-potato cheesy thrice-baked potato!]), and you’ve got yourself a better-than-a-pricey-steakhouse meal that you can make any day of the week.

Steak frites is a bistro classic: seared steak with a deeply browned crust and medium-rare (or “bleu”) interior, a towering pile of crispy golden fries, often accompanied by an aromatic sauce that’s just as delicious when doused over the meat as it is when used as a dipper for the spuds. The most iconic steak frites has to be served at [link https://www.relaisentrecote.fr/?page_id=205&lang=en_GB Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecôte], a Parisian institution that has gone worldwide. They don’t have anything else on the menu: just steak frites, served with a side salad, although you can get a second helping of steak—and dessert, if you want. What’s funny about it is the steak and fries ... they’re just all right. The real draw is their secret sauce. It’s got it all: It’s creamy and savory, it’s briny, it’s got a pronounced acidic tang, and it’s got a raft of herbs mixed up into it—not quite a hollandaise, not quite a mayo, but 100 percent delicious. We reverse-engineered it and came up with something very close but better, fresher, and super simple to make. Since the steak and fries are only so-so at the restaurant chain, we knew we—and you!—could do better. Pick your [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-guide-to-steak favorite steak], give it a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/presearing-for-sous-vide quick sear] to jump-start the Maillard reaction, [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-steak cook it sous vide], and then sear it right before serving for the ultimate steak, perfect for saucing. The fries? We’ve developed the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-crispy-french-fries ultimate crispy frites], which are basically the Pringles of fries—riced potatoes mixed with starch and formed into batons before getting double-fried to produce an ultra-crispy exterior with a light and fluffy center.

Like any proud parent, we love all our french fry recipes equally. [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thin-cut-french-fries Thin-cut], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thick-cut-french-fries thick-cut], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/air-fried-frozen-french-fries air-fried]—each is delicious in its own right; each one has its time to shine. But this french fry recipe ... well, we love it just like the rest, but maybe a little more. Designed to go along with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-steak-frites Ultimate Steak Frites], these fries are the fluffiest of them all, thanks to the fact that they’re not made from planks of potato; they’re a combo of riced potatoes and cornstarch. They’re basically processed potatoes, a Pringles approach to our classic fries. This process gives you a leg up on time and convenience. Whereas our other french fry recipes work best with [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/finding-perfect-french-fry-potatoes perfect french fry potatoes], you can use any russets you have around for these. And the cooking process is comparatively streamlined: You just boil ’em til tender, mix them with starch, let the dough chill and set, then cut it up and get frying. In the end, we might like these french fries more than our others not because they’re quick to make, or because they’ve got a short ingredient list, or they’re dead easy. It’s because, fresh out of the fryer, they’re actually just the best fries we’ve ever made (and they stay crispy for hours).

We’ve got sous vide versions of all your ’cue favorites—[link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/smokerless-smoked-brisket brisket], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/smokerless-smoked-pork-shoulder butt], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/smokerless-smoked-ribs-incredible-barbecue-no-smoker-required ribs], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bbq-beef-short-ribs short ribs]—and they’re just as good, if not better and easier to make than the real deal. We took all our experience with turning [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/decoding-tough-and-tender-cuts tough hunks of meat] into tender and juicy ’cue and translated it to the task of creating our version of the star of the Jewish delicatessen: sous vide pastrami. “Pastrami” comes from the Turkish “pastirma,” or “pressed,” which refers to jerky-like cured meat product. [link https://tastecooking.com/pastrami-everything/ The preparation ] was brought by Romanian immigrants to the United States, and it was perfected in iconic Jewish delicatessens in New York like [link http://katzsdelicatessen.com/ Katz’s]. Instead of using premium cuts of meat, delis used inexpensive brisket, specifically the navel cut, and they’d dry cure the beef, smoke it, then steam it until tender for service. As people realized how delicious the preparation could be, “pastrami” products became available at supermarket deli counters and on the cold cuts shelf. But that “pastrami” is almost always sad and dry. Often made from beef shoulder cuts and designed to be sliced thin and eaten cold, it never really had a chance of measuring up to the great pastrami you can get at Jewish delis across the country. Our version blows any supermarket pastrami offering out of the water, and a big part of that is we use one of the beefiest cuts of meat–short rib!—and we serve it up hot. EDITORS’ NOTE: We’ve retested and updated this recipe to include an option for a shorter sous vide cook at a higher temperature that produces a leaner, more firm pastrami for folks who prefer that texture. We still favor a 48-hour low-temp cook—our preferred temp is now [f 147]. We also provide two options for the order of pastrami-cooking operations, and we have outlined the pros and cons for each in the “Before we begin” section. In the updated video, Grant goes with the sous vide then smoke option, but we kept the original recipe instructions for the smoke then sous vide method. Both produce excellent results, and it comes down to a matter of preference.

You probably think of cucumbers when you think of pickles. But as that one [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYey8ntlK_E Portlandia skit] reminds us, cukes are just the beginning. Garlic? You can pickle that! Lychee? You can pickle that! Champagne grapes? You can pickle ... those. A pickle is any food that’s preserved in an acid. You can make pickles with fermentation but that takes more than a hot minute. Another way to pickle is to add vinegar or a vinegary brine to your fruits or vegetables, then heat-treat the combo to pasteurize it. This process is faster and simpler than fermentation, but the results have less bite—both in terms of funky flavor and crunchy texture. To amp up the former, we add salt and/or sugar, plus herbs, spices, and other aromatics. And to get the pickles crisp, we use a low-temperature water bath—[f 140]—to heat the pickles until they’re pasteurized. If you use quart—or liter—jars, your gorgeous, crispy pickles will be good to go in just two and a half hours. Store ’em in a shady spot for up to six months and you’ll have snappy snacks, garnishes, and side dishes whenever you want. So, the next time someone asks you what they should do with a fruit or veggie, you know what to say, right? You. Can. Pickle. That!

Brisket is a pitmaster’s mainstay, but let’s face it: It’s often poorly executed, and ends up being dry, bland, blah. Tired of the ho-hum stuff (and never willing to shy away from a challenge), we set out to make a better brisket, with juicy, smoky meat and a sticky, satisfying bark. Just to up the ante, we decided to develop it without the aid of a smoker, taking a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-guide-to-modernist-bbq modernist approach] using liquid smoke and nitrites to evoke a smoky flavor and signature pink ring at the edge of the meat—both hallmarks of first-rate ’cue—and cooking the beef sous vide. We also developed [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bark-builder Bark Builder], which can be applied to the meat just before finishing it in an oven to produce a crust on the exterior that is very close to the dark and delicious crust that forms on the outside of long-smoked meats. Combined with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/texas-black-pepper-barbecue-rub Texas Black Pepper Barbecue Rub] and our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sweet-and-sticky-bbq-sauce Sweet and Sticky Barbecue Sauce], even the most discerning 'cue enthusiast will find it hard to pick nits about the quality of our sous vide brisket. The upshot for you, hungry meat fiends, is the best dang barbecue brisket you’ll ever make, and you can make it in the climate-controlled comfort of your own kitchen. You don’t need a smoker and you don’t need a lot of space—although we also give you the option of finishing this tender-as-heck brisket in a smoker, if you've got one. Grab some carnivorous buddies—you’re gonna want to show this one off. EDITORS’ NOTE: We’ve updated this recipe after further testing and considering reader feedback. We’ve increased the sous vide cook temperature to [f 162], and reduced the time for the oven finishing step to 30 minutes (down from 3 to 4 hours). This produces a better brisket texture that is more in line with great Texas barbecue: jiggly, juicy, and tender. We've streamlined the seasoning process by replacing the wet brine with a dry cure and brushed glaze approach. We've retested the recipe using our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/texas-black-pepper-barbecue-rub Texas black pepper rub] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sweet-and-sticky-bbq-sauce sweet and sticky sauce], and provided the option of using our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bark-builder Bark Builder] for improved bark results. Finally, we’ve also added the option of finishing the brisket in the smoker.

This vegan riff on foie gras mousse has all the flavor of fatty duck liver, with none of the distraction of ethical debates. It’s just plants, and it's creamy and delicious! By using cashews and two powerful [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/unlock-your-hydrocolloid-starter-pack hydrocolloids]—low-acyl and high-acyl gellan gums—we were able to replicate the texture and richness of foie gras mousse exactly. With a little of the same [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sweet-spice Sweet Spice] mix we use in our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/foie-gras-torchon-a-flavor-packed-french-snack-your-friends-will-freak-over classic torchon], and some miso, tomato paste, cognac, mushrooms, and aromatics, it also has the classic flavor profile and umami oomph of foie gras mousse. You can call it faux gras, call it vegan cheese, or call it imfoiessible pâté ... it doesn’t matter. Serve it up with toast points, and we guarantee everyone will love it.

Every weekend, all over this great country, brunch spots serve up eggs Benedict by the dozens—all while wrangling byzantine Bloody Mary customizations and tantrum-prone toddlers and lines of hangry hipsters stretching out the door. How do they do it? Simple: timing and technique. And if you tap into the potential of sous vide, you, too, can use timing and technique to make serving up picture-perfect eggs Benny at home a breeze, with zero risk of messing things up. Oh, and guess what else? Your saucy egg dish will be the best version you—and your guests—have ever tasted. By planning ahead and focusing on individual components, a seemingly complicated and fussy recipe doesn’t just become doable—it becomes fun to make. And by using sous vide to poach the eggs and make the sauce, you eliminate any risk of over- or under-cooking your eggs, and your hollandaise will be perfectly creamy and emulsified. With those once-tricky preparations on lock, you can hone in on the rest of the dish and time things out to a T. When your guests arrive, you can pour them some drinks and invite them to the table for the best open-faced eggwiches of their mother sauce–loving lives. EDITORS’ NOTE: After combing through feedback and retesting this recipe, we have updated the process to cook the eggs and hollandaise at a higher temperature ([f 167]) for a much shorter amount of time (13 minutes). This produces poached eggs with firmer set whites but still runny yolks, as well as a silky-smooth hollandaise. And the best part: You can now make foolproof sous vide eggs Benedict in 30 minutes flat.

Italian beef? Yes, chef! Ever since The Bear came out, everyone’s been running around calling each other chef, and everyone and their cousin have been asking us to put out an Italian beef sandwich recipe. Remember when Carmy had to use all his fine-dining cheffy skills to transform the wrong cut of beef into even-more-excellent Italian beef than the shop usually served? Yeah, we did that. Carmy just used a straight braise, but when you can dial in the exact braising temperature using sous vide or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-induction-works precision induction], you can guarantee great, stress-free results without having to kick anyone off the line in a fit of blind chef rage. Both methods will get you perfectly cooked beef—firm enough to slice thin, tender enough that strips of beef won’t slide out of the sandwich, with a little herbal lift from a spice mix of ground fennel seed, coriander, black pepper, red pepper flakes, paprika, oregano, and thyme. Italian beef is sort of an odd duck of a sandwich meat, since it’s served hot, like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-pastrami pastrami], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/oven-barbecue-brisket brisket], or shaved ribeye in cheesesteaks, but it’s usually made from bottom or top round—tough, lean cuts that are best served in cold, thin slices in sandwiches because they don’t have a ton of intramuscular fat. The reason why Italian beef is warmed in the beef braising liquid (jus for most of us, “gravy” for you Chicagoans) is because it helps season the meat and makes the naturally lean meat seem “juicier.” For home cooks, the main obstacle to a good Italian beef sandwich is a deli slicer—it’s tough to get super-thin slices of round using a knife. Over the years, we’ve shown countless times that you can transform traditional braising cuts into sliceable roasts that eat like steaks cooked to a perfect medium-rare just by harnessing the power of a long, low-temperature cook, so we applied that method to a series of cuts—round, but also brisket and short ribs—and we found that short ribs gave us the most delicious and most consistent results. Cooked for 24 hours and chilled, you can easily carve off super-thin slices that are perfect for piling into a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/italian-sandwich-rolls soft Italian roll]. The beef is so tender and beefy that it doesn’t need much else. It could be served in a “dry” sandwich with some [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hot-giardiniera hot giardiniera] and you’d be perfectly happy. But because we use [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes Ultimate Beef Bouillon Cubes] in the braising liquid, you’re going to want to at least serve it “wet”—dousing the sandwich generously with the glutamate-packed gravy.

If you are old enough to remember a world without the internet, you may also have enjoyed a childhood in which the chicken nuggets at a certain ubiquitous fast-food chain were consumed largely without question. Remember those golden bird bites—crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, magnificent when doused with spicy mustard sauce?  If you did not grow up on the nug, fear not. We’re going to help you experience everything good about that eating experience, only instead of mystery meat, we’re using skin-on, flavor-packed thighs—just as fresh and wholesome as you please. We lose the bone and pound ’em flat, then cook them sous vide for that impossibly juicy interior. Then we sear those suckers skin-side down in a hot pan and serve with [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/fresh-and-simple-yam-or-sweet-potato-puree a yam or sweet potato purée] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/our-favorite-simple-kale-salad Our Favorite Simple Kale Salad] for a weeknight meal that feels like a treat but is easy to pull off and simple to source at your favorite grocery store or organic market. And if you decide to serve these thighs with salty fries and a toy promoting the latest Disney film, well, who are we to get in the way of your ’90s nostalgia?

The key to perfect crème brûlée—and all [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/custard-parametric-analysis custards], really—is to keep the internal temperature of the mixture below [f 185]. Above that point, they have a tendency to curdle (and they start tasting super eggy). By cooking crème brûlée in a sous vide bath, we can precisely control the cooking temperature, eliminating the risk of a curdled dessert. Prepped in small, wide-mouth mason jars, these custards emerge from the bath already individually portioned in adorable serving vessels. Before serving, we add a golden-brown layer of caramelized sugar using a blowtorch. (Don’t worry if you’ve never tried it; we’ll walk you through the technique.) The result: an eminently satisfying sunshine-hued dessert with a deliciously crackly top and a whisper of elegant sweetness that's as easy to prepare for a crowd as it is for smaller gatherings.

This isn’t your local diner’s meatloaf. We drew on our experience making charcuterie to make a meatloaf recipe that’s completely dialed in. Roasted mushrooms and a red wine-onion jam add complexity to the farce, and the combination of a panade and eggs help to bind moisture and keep it all together. Cooked sous vide, it’s juicy, tender (but not too tender), and perfectly sliceable, every time. It’s as delicious sliced warm and served alongside some [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-fluffy-mashed-potatoes mashed potatoes] as it is stuffed into a meatloaf sandwich (melt a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/melty-cheese-slices Gruyère cheese slice] on there—it’ll be so good!). You could even slice it cold and serve it on a charcuterie board. We wanted to level up the classic ketchup glaze so that it perfectly enrobes the meatloaf, with no spreading and no runniness. By turning the glaze ingredients—beef stock and Worcestershire for umami, ketchup and brown sugar for that classic sweet-savory flavor profile—into a fluid gel, we can cut out a sheet of glaze, lay it on top of the loaf, and you get the perfect amount of glaze coverage after a brief spell in a hot oven.

Fried chicken: Everybody loves it, but no one loves making it—until now. This fried chicken is delicious, and it’s nearly impossible to f* up. This technique is almost foolproof thanks to sous vide: We cook the chicken in a temperature-controlled water bath so it’s well-seasoned and perfectly cooked and juicy—both the dark meat and the white meat. Coated with buttermilk, flour, and our blend of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/fried-chicken-spice-blend not-so-secret herbs and spices] and briefly fried in hot oil, just to crisp the breading, and the chicken is ready to go. It only takes a couple of minutes! EDITORS’ NOTE: We’ve updated this recipe with an improved flour dredge formula and breading process that we developed for our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/extra-crispy-fried-turkey Extra Crispy KFC-Style Fried Turkey] recipe. We’re always looking for ways to level up our work!

Making great indoor barbecue is hard; purists argue that it’s impossible. Specifically, they argue that the bark, the iconic and elusive feature of nicely smoked meat, can’t be done without a smoker. For the uninitiated, “bark” is that almost crispy layer of deeply browned to blackened spice, meat, fat, and smoke that develops on the surface of smoked meat. And to a certain extent, we agree with the purists: Without a smoker, producing bark is mostly impossible. Mostly impossible. What if we told you that producing bark on indoor barbecue is possible? What if we told you that after 300 hours of experimentation in the ChefSteps test kitchen, cooking rounds and rounds of pork butt, ribs, and brisket, geeking out on pH, Maillard reactions, and alternative sugars, we’ve developed a product that can help you produce barbecue bark, no smoker required? Well, that’s what we’re telling you, right now! Introducing: Bark Builder, the secret ingredient for leveling up indoor barbecue. Whip up a batch and use it on any barbecue recipe that doesn’t require a smoker—just follow the instructions below for applying it. You’re going to love the results, even if they seem impossible. EDITORS’ NOTE: You asked, and we listened! We’ve updated this page to include a recipe for Bark Builder, so you can just make it yourself.

Flapjacks, slapjacks, hotcakes, silver dollars, crêpes, blini ... whatever you call ’em, pancakes are delicious. A pancake is a deceptively simple preparation: Mix flour with some kind of liquid and leavening agent and puddle the mixture into a greased pan, and you’ll get a light cake-like foam that serves as a perfect canvas for everything from maple syrup and honey to caviar and sour cream. But, as we all know, there’s a lot of pancake varieties. Depending on the ingredient ratios and methods, you can make a filigree-thin crêpe, a stack of fat flapjacks, or a soufflé-like cushion that’s closer to an actual cake than anything else. What does that mean? That’s right: Pancakes are a perfect candidate for our signature parametric analysis! Specifically, we wanted to demonstrate how ingredient quantities and cooking techniques can yield pancakes of different thicknesses and, consequently, eating experiences. Let’s get into the stacks!

Scrambled eggs ... everyone’s got an opinion. Maybe you like them fluffy. Maybe you like them fancy and French—so runny and custardy they puddle on the plate. Maybe you swear by the method of that shouty British chef, who mixes up his oeufs with a little crème fraîche. We don’t judge. Scrambled eggs can be prepared a million different ways. Conventional recipes rely on a conventional bag of tricks to manage temperature on your stovetop beyond just turning the knobs on your stove—like adding the eggs before the butter foams, or after, stirring eggs on-heat, then off-heat. We’re all for learning classic techniques, but they’re not foolproof, and they don’t guarantee consistently perfect results. But with the unmatched precision temperature control of the Control Freak Home, you have total control over cooking results, so you can get perfect scrambled eggs, just the way you (or your kids) want them, every time. We've developed recipes for scrambled eggs that span the texture spectrum from ultra-creamy to super-crispy, with dialed-in times and temperatures for the Control Freak Home, along with detailed videos and instructions to walk you through the process for each one. (You don’t have to have a fancy induction burner to make all these eggs, but it’ll make your breakfast routine a whole lot easier.) Pick the scrambled egg texture you want from the chart below and get cracking!

Tired of your gas grill’s weak sear? Frustrated by the heat output on your Weber? Annoyed by all your wooden skewers going up in smoke before your kebabs are done? We’ve got a solution to all those problems! Behold: the DIY hibachi grill! If you’ve ever wanted a high-performance, super-high-heat-output, precision grill designed specifically for grilling skewered meats and veggies, look no further. Using our detailed instructions, you can have a top-of-the-line grill that outperforms an expensive konro for under $100! And you can customize it however you want. It’s sort of like our scrounged-together [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/camping-how-to-make-a-hibachi-that-really-grills camping hibachi], but it’s way easier to put together and the parts are reusable. (Yes, it has nearly identical parts to [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/diy-wood-fired-neapolitan-pizza-oven-for-less-than-50 our DIY wood-fired pizza oven]!) And it’s not just for skewers. Anything that can be cooked over intense, direct heat can be cooked on this hibachi: steaks, chops, veggies ... you name it. Let’s get grillin’!

“Should I brine my turkey?” “Is ‘brining’ just a fancy word for ‘salting’?” “What does a brine even do?” “I’ve got to brine my bird for 5 days??” For many home cooks, the questions of when and whether to use a brine (and why!) mostly come up during the holidays, when you’re getting a big old turkey ready for Thanksgiving. There are several different brining methods that you can employ, each with pros and cons. To help you decide whether or not you want to brine your bird, we’ve created a decision tree/flowchart. If you find you do want to use a brine, we’ve created a chart to use as a quick reference guide for brine ratios and timing for standard poultry parts and weights, as well as a poultry brining calculator spreadsheet that you can use to input the precise weight of your bird (or bird parts) to get the exact measurements for the brine of your choice, along with suggested brining times.

We’ve got problems with most blueberry muffins. Sure, you get to eat cake for breakfast, and you get to feel good about it because it’s got fruit in it. But if you’re going to eat cake for breakfast, you might as well be eating the best freaking blueberry cake. Don’t settle for mediocre continental breakfast buffet muffins! Let us introduce you to our ultimate blueberry muffin. Just like our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/super-apple-pie super apple pie], this is everything you love about a blueberry muffin but with all the knobs turned to 11. Let’s start with the berries; [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oF1Rd5kis4 some people complain that there are never enough berries]. We pack blueberries in these muffins in three ways: a bunch of berries mixed into the batter, a healthy dose of freeze-dried and powdered berries in both the batter and the glaze, and some blueberry extract in the batter to really take the berry flavor over the top (malic acid helps accentuate the berry flavor, too!). For the batter itself, we colored a little outside of the muffin lines. Usually, muffin batters are meant to be super quick, slapped-together affairs: You separate your dry and wet ingredients, you mix them, and you have muffins coming out of the oven an hour later. For our ultimate muffin, we cream the fats with sugars and then mix in the eggs and buttermilk and sifted flour in stages to limit gluten development, guaranteeing the muffins bake up as light and fluffy as the best blueberry cake. Except ... we’re not making cake! We’re making muffins, and muffins need big, honking crowns, so we use a two-step baking process: high heat to start for oven spring and to set the outside of the muffin, low heat at the end to limit [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/mastering-the-maillard-reaction Maillard browning] so the flavor’s all about the blueberries and tender, cakey crumb. With a crown so magnificent, though, we wanted to give the “stump” a little boost. We give them the coffee cake treatment and layer in streusel and put it on top—no need to set up [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYkj2yYaGtU a little muffin top store of your own], since this muffin is interesting from top to bottom.

Let’s talk pie dough. Pie pastry made well—whether flaky or tender—is one your family and guests will remember for years to come. All memorable pies are built on the foundation of a great pie dough. So are tarts, galettes, bar cookies, hand pies, or pasties. Take the time to make good pie pastry. Whatever you fill it with will probably be the best bite of food you will eat that day. So, let’s make some damned flaky dough to bake into a golden treat. Pie dough is all about choosing the right ingredients, then using the right techniques to make those ingredients even better. The way you do the mixing, chilling, forming, and baking—it matters. Follow the guidelines we have laid out here, then use whatever quality flour and any type of fat you have in the right ratios? You will make good pastry. You can scale the fat up or down and play with the ingredients here to make a different kind of pie. Need a workhorse dough that is sturdy and holds filling well? Decrease the fat content and bump up the hydration. Want to add more richness? Add some egg, sugar or a tropical fat like coconut oil or palm shortening. Using a combination of fats and flours will level up your pie dough game. Play with adding some buckwheat flour into your wheat flour for more nuttiness, and add some red palm oil in place of some of the butter for a darker golden hue on the crust. Our pastry chef, Matthew Woolen, makes pie dough with a patient technique that even some of the experienced bakers on staff have never seen before. And this makes the flakiest pie dough we have ever eaten.

A well-made, oven-cooked prime rib is a thing of beauty. Just ask the denizens of the UK and her former colonies, who have served that stuff at holiday feasts since around the Industrial Revolution. **It’s bloody delicious, govna.** But it’s also expensive, which is why we seldom eat it outside the festive season—and why its preparation inspires plenty of hand-wringing. So while we love a holiday tradition as much as the next guy dressed in a Santa suit, we recommend that this year, you cook that gorgeous hunk o’ meat sous vide. For one thing, your roast is guaranteed to come out just the way you like it—always important when we’re working with the pricey stuff. And then there are the results: **silky**, **oh-so-juicy meat that boasts an incredible amount of beefy flavor**. More good news: instead of shooing small children away from the oven as you nervously monitor dinner, you can spend some time making feast-worthy side dishes, wrapping last-minute gifts, or watching *Love Actually* for the umpteenth time. (All hail Emma Thompson, our one true sovereign.) Adapted from our own [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/standing-rib-roast traditional rib roast recipe], this method calls for some trussing and trimming, plus a rub of fresh herbs that crisp up when we give the beef a little post-cook sear in the oven. You can skip the nips and tucks or ask your butcher to perform them. And if you don’t like the herbs we list here, ask your own favorite sage cook if she has thyme to make some suggestions, or just see what bay wants. Point is, you got options. So go forth and make the best rib roast you’ve ever eaten, secure in the knowledge that your meat will come out perfect every time. Because that, dear holiday host, is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

This is roast chicken, perfected. It’s what every other roast chicken recipe in the world promises but doesn’t deliver: a beautifully browned bird with actually crispy skin and super tender, super juicy, perfectly cooked meat. The process isn’t quick, but it’s worth it: Inject the bird with brine, let it air-dry for three to five days to dry out the skin, then use a two-step cooking process with a long rest in the middle to slowly bring the internal temp up, and then blast the exterior to get that crispy skin without drying out the meat. EDITORS’ NOTE: We retested and updated this recipe to streamline the process. We found the poaching step before air-drying the bird to be unnecessary and found that the air-drying step could be reduced to three to five days. We also offer alternatives for people who can’t (or don’t want to) hang a chicken in their fridge or oven, and we’ve included settings and directions for using a professional Rational oven and a home countertop oven.