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When to Season

When to Season

In the General Sous Vide Questions Forum
I have some questions about when to salt food when it comes to sous vide, specifically why you would want to season *before* bagging.

It seems like one of the benefits of sous vide is that I could spend Sunday preparing a bevvy of dishes to last the week. Toss all the ingredients I want in a bag, seal, then plop in the water on the day I want to eat it. Or I could even freeze the prepared meal for longer storage.

My concern would be that if I were to salt food on Sunday, that within a few days I'd almost end up curing it (not always desirable). So it seems to make sense to only season after the cooking is complete (which runs counter to what we're taught about more traditional methods). Or am I wrong about the "curing" aspect?

Even with shorter periods between sealing and cooking, why would I pre-season at all? Wouldn't the salt just leach moisture out of the food?

Is there any reason at all I would WANT to pre-season?

Thanks!
By dancole42 on Thursday, January 12 at 06:46 PM


3 Replies So Far

A very good question dancole42, in general we now recommend salting after you have cooked the food, unless it is cooked right away (or frozen) and cooked for a short amount of time. Here's some more information about salting and sous vide: Sous Vide and Salt.

That said, the difference tends to be not extreme, unless you had heavily salted it and bagged it days ahead of time.
By Jason Logsdon on Thursday, January 12 at 07:09 PM
I'm not sure that the amount of salt normally used for taste is sufficient to be considered curing unless you like your food really salty. (Personally, I also consider it to be 'salting' rather than 'curing', which I take to mean include nitrites/nitrates, but that's a different issue.) Also when we brine meat we do it to increase the moistness, so I'm not sure where this all leads us.
By TonyB on Thursday, January 12 at 10:45 PM
The link above addresses both those issues. The Ideas in Food people and French Culinary Institute both found that pre-salting, especially during long cooking times or cook chill would affect the texture and taste. Like I said, it's minor but still something to keep in mind.
By Jason Logsdon on Thursday, January 12 at 11:06 PM


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