Humans are a creative bunch. If there’s a better way, a quicker way, an easier way, you can pretty much count on someone, somewhere to eventually figure it out.

I’m not exactly sure if dishwasher cuisine falls into any of the aforementioned categories, but I have to admit it’s creative.

What is dishwasher cuisine?

Dishwasher cuisine is, I suppose, a cooking method hack that you could also call a poor man’s sous vide (sous vide being the term for vacuum-sealed foods slow-cooked in a water bath).

The idea of it all is to use your dishwasher’s hot water wash and dry heat cycle to cook your food. Of course, one of the key parts of the technique is that you don’t use detergent.

From a physics perspective, it works, provided you absolutely, positively clean/disinfect your dishwasher before trying it.

This is not a new thing. As it turns out, people have been using their dishwashers as a cooking appliance since the modern dishwasher was invented. It’s been featured on Oprah and even some well-known chefs have created recipes using the dishwasher. There are even cookbooks written entirely for dishwasher cooking, one of the more popular being Lisa Casali Cucinare in Lavastoviglie or Cooking in the Dishwasher. She even has videos you can watch to see her techniques, including this one below:

So why do it?

Well, I suppose the best answer to that is…because you can.

Among the most popular recipes you’ll find online are those for poached salmon, pasta dishes, vegetable side dishes and casseroles. But virtually anything is fair game, particularly if you vacuum seal them in plastic or hermetically seal the foods in glass Mason jars before placing them in the dishwasher. At that point, you could (theoretically) even use soap and wash your dishes at the same time.

But that just seems SO wrong.

So, what are YOU doing this Thanksgiving?

Well, your boring, traditional friends, relatives and neighbors are probably roasting their bird. A few adventurous ones might even be boasting about deep frying their bird.

Want to really impress?

If you follow Celebrity Chef David Burke’s recipe, I can almost guarantee that you will be THE only person on the block cooking a Thanksgiving turkey…in the dishwasher.

Chef Burke explains his method in this video and his recipe is below:

Chef David Burke’s Dishwasher Turkey

Ingredients:

2 boneless turkey breasts, 12-14 lbs. total

4 tablespoons parsley

3 tablespoons sage

3 tablespoons rosemary

3 tablespoons thyme

4 tablespoons garlic

4 tablespoons shallots

1 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons salt

2 tablespoons pepper

1. Mince the herbs, garlic and shallots, and then combine with salt, pepper and olive oil.
2. Rub into turkey breast and cover tightly with plastic wrap.
3. Place in an open Tupperware container (just to hold everything in place) and sit on top shelf of dishwasher.
4. Run dishwasher for 3 full cycles for a total time of about 3 hours and 25 minutes.
5. Let sit for 25 minutes. Then place under broiler to crisp skin for finish.

Unlike my recommendations for cookware, knives and gadgets, I have no dishwasher-brands to recommend to you, so you’re on your own. I have a Viking Dishwasher with full stainless-steel interior and various features, but in the end, with water temperatures exceeding 150 F, nearly any dishwasher will do.

It all sounds so weird, so gimmicky, but provided you protect the food from directly coming in contact with the water, it’s truly sous vide cooking in its own (very strange) way. And trust me, it works.

It actually works pretty well.

Having said all of this, I actually own a sous vide machine and it’s something I’ll be talking about in an upcoming blog.

Until then, if you’re inspired to try dishwasher cuisine, let me know how YOUR clean-cuisine recipe came out.