Vacuum Sealing

Written By Jennifer Duty

Since purchasing a freezer, I learned about vacuum sealing. This is brand new to me, but I am already amazed at its many uses. I bought one to keep my very expensive, local, grass-fed, meat from getting freezer burn and get maximum long term freezer storage. I buy all meat in bulk for the best price and to keep the freezer stocked.

I was separating the meat and putting it into zippered freezer bags, but my sister-in-law warned me about freezer burn. I hadn’t really thought about it. I was buying the expensive, brand name zippered bags I thought that would be enough. It wasn’t. I like to prepare the chicken breasts before freezing them. That makes them thin and more likely to get freezer burn.

Luckily I caught this before it got too bad. Only a couple of the chicken breasts had a small amount of freezer burn.

Vacuum seal machines come in many different options. I bought a mid-level machine, based on the fact I would be doing a lot of sealing at one time. I also needed the options of different size bags and different thickness of the bags. While doing research I learned certain bags can be used for sous vide.

My Instant Pot setting had a Sous Vide setting. So I did research on that. Now I cook most of the chicken and fish in the Instant Pot on the Sous Vide setting and brown it either in the oven on the stovetop to finish it. I have done some beef sous, but I am still learning.

While doing research I learned people use their vacuum seal machines for things other than food. Did you know you can seal important documents? I didn’t even think about that before.

Going to the river? Vacuum seal your phone and wallet. As a part of the RV nation, I found it to be very useful on a recent trip. I vacuum sealed pickles. We like to eat tiny, baby dill pickles on picnics. Bringing glass in a moving vehicle is always a risk. I have arrived to find broken mayonnaise jars and broken juice jars. I prefer things in glass instead of plastic, but it just doesn’t travel well. I also cut two avocados in half and vacuum sealed them. I put them in the ice chest and I brought two whole avocados.

The ones in the vacuum seal lasted twice as long. Less banging around in the picnic basket. I also vacuum sealed the cheese and lunch meat in a single serving size so nothing went to waste. The best part is the vacuum seal is waterproof and very durable, as the ice melted my food was not waterlogged.

At home, I pre-peeled and cut carrots for juice. In the vacuum seal, they do not dry out. I vacuum sealed fresh vegetables and put them in the freezer. A nice thing about the vacuum seal is that you can pre-season the meat or the vegetables and then sous vide.

You can vacuum seal and freeze your own pre-made meals. I am really glad I made the purchase. The only disappointment was how fast I ran out of bags. When doing large batches of anything the vacuum seal rolls do not last long. So now I need to stock up on vacuum seal bags.

Be well.

“Pacific Flake, your local sea salt harvestry”

JUN 23, 2020