The ChefWave Chefe wants you to immerse your cooking

As of late, all of the attention on kitchen gadgets seems to have been focused on air fryers and pressure cookers. One area we’ve not seen as much activity is in the world of immersion circulators, or sous vide. With that, you have a heating element keeping a water (in a pot or container) at a specific temperature, into which you put your sealed bag of food. This allows you to get results you wouldn’t have with dry heat methods. The ChefWave Chefe brings a wrinkle to that idea.

Rather than relying on that immersion circulation – which requires you to bag the food – the ChefWave Chefe instead relies on steam (and pressure) to attain its temperatures. So, in that vein, it’s sort of a cross between a pressure cooker and an immersion circulator. Pulling in a function you might have on your crock pot or stove, it can also set itself to have a delayed start, so the food is ready when you get home.

So, what can the Chefe actually do? The brand lists out 13 distinct capabilities. For the built in functions (ie, what type of food are you making), you’ve got rice, soup, cake, stew, vegetable, porridge, risotto, multigrain and beans/chili. Past that, you’ve got four different cooking methods available in the appliances: slow cook, steam, bake and reheat.

All of this is done within a 4 quart stainless steel pot, which can then also be used to serve the food, or even go into the fridge (once covered) to keep your food for later (and perhaps even reheat in the Chefe). The fact that it’s relying on steam should mean your food won’t be dried out, as well as potentially allowing you to hit temps (if you want) much higher than dry heat can hit. Throw in the pressure, and you can get foods cooked much more quickly, while keeping things succulent and at the precise temp you want.

To my way of thinking, the ChefWave Chefe is best suited to the sorts of things that you’d normally make in your crock pot (stews, soups, roasts, and the like) or via steaming (you know, steamed vegetables). I am curious as to how it’s rice mode works, and very, very intrigued to see what a cake is like that comes out of this setup. To that end, we are working on getting in a review unit. In the mean time, if you want to get your own, it’ll run you $159.99 from focuscamera.com, which looks to be the official storefront of ChefWave.