Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker review

Is the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker worth it?

Multitasking lifestyles make cooking a challenge. If you're not focused on what you're doing, you can forget to shake the air fryer basket, leave the popcorn in the microwave too long or dry out a dish in the oven. Having a compact appliance that helps ensure perfect doneness (even if you might be prone to distractions) can make all your meals better.

A sous vide takes the guesswork out of cooking. It locks in flavor and gives you a way to achieve consistent results with proteins, vegetables, fruits and more. A sous vide is energy-efficient and great for batch cooking.

The Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker has "more power, faster heat-up times and improved Wi-Fi connection." The company also states it's smaller and more durable than previous offerings. To see if these claims were true, BestReviews brought this model into its Testing Lab to evaluate its performance.

A newer version of this product exists. Check out the Anova Precision Cooker 3.0 here.

Testing the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker 

To cover the broadest scope of consumers, the Testing Lab at BestReviews employs individuals who are new to a product as well as experts. This helps BestReviews determine how easy it is for people to set up and use something they're unfamiliar with. It also helps the company better understand a user's product expectations. For Anova's sous vide, the testing lab paid particular attention to setup, convenience, quality, noise level, speed and how easy it was to cook remotely using the app.

What is the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker?

The sous vide comes securely packed. You just open the lid to the box and pull out the appliance. The cord and clamp are already attached, so there's no real assembly required. The precision cooker is solid, has a bit of heft and feels like it's made from quality materials.

Anova's Sous Vide Precision Cooker is an immersion circulator. It performs two simple tasks: it heats and circulates water. To cook well, however, it needs to maintain a precise water temperature over potentially long cooking times.

For this method of cooking, you need to seal your food in a bag so it can be submerged. Sealing the food means no juices or flavor escape. Your finished result is an evenly cooked dish that's remarkably tender and flavorful. In fact, you may wish to grill it up for a few seconds to get some sear marks and contrasting textures.

While it isn't impossible to overcook a dish in Anova's sous vide, it is very hard. The testing lab concluded you have to almost willfully want to sabotage a meal or neglect the cooking process beyond a reasonable length of time to experience unsavory results. Contrary to many other cooking methods, food that is overcooked in a sous vide becomes mushy, not dried out.

See how the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker compares to other products in its space — check out our reviews for the best sous vide machines.

Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker price and where to buy

The Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker is available for $218.99 on Amazon.

How to use the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker

Before using the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker, you have to set it up. Luckily, that process only takes a few seconds. Before plugging it in, it's best to clamp your Anova to your pot. This way the appliance is secure and ready to use. The testing lab discovered the sous vide makes a little alert sound as soon as you plug it in so you know it has turned on.

Since there are only a few buttons on the machine, it's possible to use the sous vide without reading the instructions. Basically, you just have to set the temperature and time, then press start. If you want to use the free app for control, however, you will need to turn on your device's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, download the app, launch it and follow the on-screen instructions to set it up. After that, you can control the Anova from your mobile device, no matter where you are.

BestReviews tested the product on several recipes. The lab made pulled pork, chicken breast, eggs, a tri-tip roast and asparagus. To go a little broader, BestReviews cooked up chicken wings, mashed potatoes, salmon, and a 30-pound turkey. In all instances, the water heated up quickly, remained at a steady temperature and cooked the food thoroughly and evenly. The only troubles were letting the water level get too low on long cooks and tripping the circuit when more than one appliance was on.

As far as noise, the Anova was about the level of an electric toothbrush. It wasn't super quiet, but it also wasn't intrusively loud.

Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker benefits

The Anova precision cooker heats up quickly and doesn't really require much cleaning. If any accidents happen — a bag breaks in the water — the bottom of this appliance can be quickly twisted off for cleaning. The temperature settings are reliable and remain constant throughout the cook cycle, giving you faith that the product will perform as expected. Whether you're using the app or onboard controls, operation is intuitive.

Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker drawbacks

While the BestReviews Testing Lab found no faults or flaws with this model, a few other users thought the noise level was bothersome. Additionally, some reviews pointed out that the app was unreliable. But again, BestReviews experienced no difficulty in this area.

Should you get the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker?

If you've never tried this type of cooking method before, the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker is highly recommended. It's geared toward a first-time user but is also suitable for an experienced chef who wants to get a lot of bang for their buck. If you want something more powerful, there are other options at higher price points, but this model should be more than sufficient for the majority of users.