I had sous vide pork ribs for dinner tonight. A big rack of pre-seasoned ribs was on special at Costco; I bought it and sliced it into 3–5 rib sections, vacuum-sealed and froze each section.
When I’m ready to eat, I throw a few of them in the SV for 2 days at 165 degrees, then sear them on the BBQ for a few minutes. No dirty pans. The ribs are so tender they literally fall off the bone. The pre-seasoning is well-integrated into the meat, and the grill gives the surface a nice crispy texture.
I can also SV them, cold-shock them (quick ice bath to stop cooking and bring down to safe temperature), throw them in the fridge, then pull them out in a week or less and sear them. Unless it’s something really thick, that’s usually enough to heat it back up again — or sometimes I SV for half an hour to warm it up before searing.
I’ve also used it on beef ribs (also 2 days), cheap steaks (3–4 hours), good steaks (1–2 hours), shrimp and scallops (30 minutes, sort of pointless, but they came out okay), and asparagus.
The SV cost me around $100, and I use a pot I already had, and the BBQ. Plus $40 or so for the vacuum sealer, which is useful anyway.