Sous vide is a cooking method in which foods are vacuum-sealed in a plastic bag and submerged in a warm, temperature-controlled water bath, then slowly cooked at this low and consistent temperature for perfect, evenly-cooked food. Sous vide machines can be quite pricey, but there’s a way to hack it using another tool.

A beer cooler can be used for sous vide because coolers work by insulating their contents from the hot air outside, using a layer of foam tucked between the inner and outer walls. If you fill a cooler with hot water and keep it closed, the temperature should remain more or less the same for a couple of hours, perfect for sous vide.

Make sure your water is heated a couple degrees higher than the temp called for in your recipe, to account for the slight temperature drop that will happen when you add your food, and allow the food to cook between one and four hours. Check the water temp with a thermometer periodically, and if it dips too low, add more hot water.