Do you ever get home after a tiring day and feel like no, I don’t want to cook today? Do you ever wish if you had the superpowers to cook food once and then heat it whenever you feel hungry and enjoy it with all its freshness? If your answer is yes, don’t worry we got you.
When used effectively, a kitchen vacuum sealer or an industrial vacuum sealer can help you save a lot of time and money. You can prepare larger meals and then keep it safe in your freezer so you have something when you’re running late or at times when you don’t feel like cooking. However, you need to perfect freezing in order to keep the freshness of the food alive for a longer period of time. Let’s have a look at top 8 tips on freezing food with a vacuum sealer.
1. How to Pre-freeze?
When you put fresh fruits and berries in a freezer bag and suck the air out, you get squashed fruit. In order to get the best food, make sure that you spread out and pre-freeze items such as veggies, meatballs, and fruits on cookie sheets but saucy items such as soups and kinds of pasta in a plastic container. In order to get rid of air bubbles, pack the food with a spoon or spatula. Once all the blocks of food are frozen, vacuum seals them with the help of a vacuum sealer.
2. When to freeze cooked food vs uncooked food?
Dishes such as soups and sauces reheat too well but you might want to assemble and vacuum seal other foods without cooking. You can mix ground turkey and pre-form batches of raw meatballs and vacuum seal it. You will get a freshly-cooked meal with the minimum effort since all the hard work is already done.
3. Always label packages
You might think that you’ll remember the fifth package in the back is the garlic-ginger paste you made 4 months ago, but in this busy world, you might forget which one is what anytime. Vacuum sealers have the potential to increase life of food products for many years. Hence, it is important to label the food package along with the date it was made.
4. Not just for the freezer
Vacuum sealing can extend the shelf life of a food in your refrigerator. However, not all the foods are meant for freezing. Half seal the food until you get through the first chunk. Ensure that you have a barrier between powders and your vacuum sealer. For example, you can vacuum seal the whole package of flour in its original packaging.
5. Double Recipes, freeze the extra
While making any dish that you know will freeze well, make it double than you want to eat. Vacuum seal the extra food as soon as it is prepared so you will be preserving the dish at its peak. Cook one for eating immediately while vacuum seal the other. The next time you would want to eat the food, defrost and heat it up in the oven.
6. Buy the bags
You can’t just vacuum seal your food in any bag. You need to purchase special bags made for your vacuum sealer machine. These bags are designed only for vacuum sealing. You can then use the bag to keep the air completely out of the bag and tight seal your food.
7. Portion it out properly
Most of the bags designed for vacuum sealing are re-usable (the only exception here is raw meats and other foods that could have bacteria remnants). However, it is always better to freeze a meal’s worth per bag. If you seal all the extra food in one bag, you’ll need to seal it again when you pour out one meal’s worth food from it.
8. Become your own butcher
You will save a lot of money when you use the vacuum sealer on meat. You can now buy the bulk packages of steaks (which will cost you less) and individually seal the steaks with the help of a vacuum sealer.
Conclusion
Make sure that you make the most of your vacuum sealer. This way you can keep extra food always on your freezer. However, make sure that you buy special bags for your vacuum seal machine and portion it out properly. Also, remember when to vacuum seal cooked food vs uncooked food.
