Hi everyone, it’s Paps here! As ‘Director in charge of frozen food’ I thought I would tell you about one of my favourite pieces of kitchen equipment – the vacuum sealer. I bought one of these a couple of years ago in Lidl for about 20 quid and honestly, it has transformed the way we store food. I have since upgraded it to the one in the picture (as I dropped the last one and Lidl didn’t have any on the shelves at the time). I got this one from Temu, but lots of places do them.
When you buy one, usually it comes with a roll of stuff that you can make your own bags out of. You can also buy ‘pre-made’ bags which are really useful.
The beauty of these machines is that they compact the food that you are storing and squash it flat. This means that you can fit a whole load more in your freezer. You can use an indelible pen and write on the bags (which you MUST do)…..don’t do a ‘Paps’ and say “I will remember what that is” and open the door to abuse later on when you can’t.
We use this for everything, leftovers, batch cooks, sauces etc. If you overcook rice (I mean cook too much) this can be vacuumed. We bought one for Jam Jam’s niece and she uses it to store homecooked baby food in small pouches. On top of this, the bags are microwaveable. I honestly believe these are a must for the ‘thrifty cook.’
I hope this is useful – happy to help further if needed…just comment.
Paps x