> I wonder if the next step in the progression is pre-packaged or even pre-cooked sous vide meats. Coles supermarkets in Australia have been selling pre-cooked

> I wonder if the next step in the progression is pre-packaged or even pre-cooked sous vide meats. Coles supermarkets in Australia have been selling pre-cooked, pre-sauced sous vide meats for a couple of years now, though they don't say "sous vide" on the packaging but rather "slow cooked for N hours". But the actual product is clearly cooked sous vide – the interior packaging is a vacuum sealed bag and the results are exactly what you'd expect. > Isn't that how the restaurants do it? In my experience it's more common in the restaurant world but still not pervasive. > I also wonder if a low power microwave oven would be an alternative to a hot water bath. Poorly. An immersion circulator is probably the simplest and ultimately cheapest form of the idea; engineering-wise they're not much more complicated than an electric kettle. It just needs economies of scale to really kick in. A microwave would also be highly impractical for all but the shortest cooks. Sous vide often takes multiple hours or even multiple days – I do 10 hour pork belly and 72 hour lamb shanks. For the latter I usually set it up in the laundry and switch from a stockpot to an esky (cooler box). Very easy to do with an immersion circulator.