tuftears | Cooking Experiment: Sous Vide Teriyaki Chicken Thighs

And finally to wrap up the weekend, behold my latest culinary masterpiece: chicken thighs marinaded in teriyaki sauce and cooked sous vide!

I began with boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I made up a marinade of soy sauce, ginger, honey, and crushed red peppers, and put two or three thighs in each of the sous vide bags, then poured marinade in, then froze them. This allowed me to then vacuum seal them properly without the marinade running into the vacuum chamber.

Following that, I started the SV bath at 150 degrees, then once the water was at temperature, I put the thighs in and let them cook for some five hours or so.

They were practically fall-apart tender after all that cooking. I seared them in the wok at high temperature with sunflower oil, then set them aside as shown above. In a separate pot, I boiled water and then cooked the green beans in them.

I used the wok to cook the teriyaki sauce, deglazing the charred bits from the chicken. I used the liquid from the SV bags, mixed with two tablespoons of teriyaki sauce and a dollop of honey, but this time I didn't add any corn starch-- when I did that last time with the beef teriyaki brisket, it resulted in a pretty useless paste substance with no real flavor. The light approach seems to work much, much better.