Seasoning chicken in sous vide?

Question

Question: should chicken be pre-seasoned or post-seasoned when sous vide-ing?

See my results below, but please post your own preferences and results as well.

I'm voting to close this as it lacks focus. There's no real question here. As for seasoning that's all open to opinion. — GdD, Mar 22 '20 at 21:56
The question is as stated in the original post. Have others tested pre- vs. post-salting with any significant findings? — myklbykl, Mar 22 '20 at 22:33
My suggestion for your post is to only ask your question. Then, after your experiment, include the rest of your commentary, with the results of your experiment, thus answering your own question. This is both encouraged, and appreciated. — moscafj, Mar 22 '20 at 23:06

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 22 '20 at 23:05

I have an answer for you, and then I will comment above about your post. In terms of salt and sous vide, in general for shorter cooking times, say less then 2-4 hours, salting in advance is fine. In longer cooks, salting in advance produces more of a "cured" result in terms of texture. Some folks like this, others not so much. In general, I salt after the sous vide step and before the finishing step. So my preference, based on lots of sous vide cooking, is no pre-seasoning.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 23 '20 at 03:42

Experiment: cook four boneless, skinless thighs in a sous vide bath at 165°F.

1) 3.5 hours pre-seasoned with kosher salt, both sides 2) 3.5 hours no salt 3) 8 hours pre-seasoned 4) 8 hours no salt

Result: there was a bigger difference between the seasoned and unseasoned 3.5-hour thighs. The un-salted (beforehand) had a better texture than the pre-seasoned one. There was a much more minor difference between the two at eight hours, but I still preferred the one that was not pre-seasoned. Between the four the eight-hour, un-seasoned thigh was best.

I will also try this test with white meat but I expect similar results.

Seasoning chicken in sous vide?

2 Answers2