Sous Vide Chicken Breast and Asparagus

"This Sous Vide Chicken Breast and Asparagus meal was inspired by my Baked Chicken in Spicy Peach Sauce with Sautéed Asparagus. To keep things simple, I didn’t make the spicy peach sauce for the sous vide meal. I prepared for six whole chicken breasts, generously seasoning them with kosher salt, black pepper, and paprika. I put them into two sous vide bags and dropped a couple sprigs of fresh herbs like thyme or rosemary in each bag, then vacuum sealed them."

NotesI saved the chicken juice from the sous vide bags and used it to flavor sous vide hard-boiled eggs. Amazing!

Click here for the easy recipe

Serves6 People

Preparation Time20 min

Cooking Time2 hr

Ingredients

6 whole chicken breasts (skinless and boneless or skin-on bone-in, the thickest part is about 1 ½ inches)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Smoked paprika
6 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 pounds of whole asparagus
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
More olive oil for searing the chicken

Attach the Anova sous vide machine to a large saucepan or a sous vide container. Fill your saucepan with water until the water comes up to somewhere between the lines of “min” and “max” that are marked on your sous vide machine.
Preheat the sous vide machine to 147°F or your desired temperature. Allow the water bath to come to the temperature before adding your chicken.
While your water bath is getting warmed up, prepare the chicken breasts by seasoning each chicken breast with salt, pepper, and paprika generously on each side.
To bag chicken breasts, start by folding the top of a sous vide bag or Ziploc bag back over itself to form a hem. This will prevent chicken seasonings and juices from getting on the edges of the bag, which could interfere with the seal or provide vectors for contamination.
Slide the chicken breasts into the bag along with thyme sprigs. (My sous vide bag is big, so I had three chicken breasts in one bag).
Unfold the edge before closing the bag. Seal the bag using either a vacuum sealer or a hand pump. You could also slowly lower your bagged chicken into your water bath, letting the pressure of the water press air out through the top of the bag. Once most of the air is out of the bag, carefully seal the bag just above the waterline.