Imagine entering a supermarket to find that rib eye steaks are discounted to fifty percent. Typically, you would probably just pick up one or two and go. After all, how much steak can one eat before the steak gets bad? But what if you were able to get five? Take them back to your house, separate each steak into its own portion, seal each portion in a vacuum-sealed bag, and freeze them. Weeks from now, take one out, cook it sous vide, sear it, and enjoy your meal.

That’s when a vacuum sealer starts to make a lot more sense. It’s about being able to buy food when it’s cheap, store it in the portions you actually need, waste less, and make future meals easier.

A Vacuum Sealer Solves More Than a Packaging Problem

Of course, you can put meat in a regular freezer bag. You can store leftovers in containers. None of that is particularly difficult. The problems start when you buy food in larger quantities or freeze food regularly.

There’s usually a lot of air left inside a normal freezer bag, which can contribute to freezer burn. Large packages have to be opened and repackaged once you start using them. Leftovers can be awkward to portion. And if you have a chest freezer, loosely packed bags can quickly turn it into a chaotic pile of frozen food.

A vacuum sealer brings all of those things together.

You can buy a large package of chicken thighs and divide it into meal-sized portions. A large piece of beef can be split into several meals. Shrimp, pork, steaks, burgers, and even some cooked foods can be packaged according to the amount you actually plan to eat.

The result is surprisingly simple: You can buy in bulk without having to eat in bulk. That may be one of the most useful things about a vacuum sealer. The supermarket’s packaging no longer dictates how you have to consume the food.

The Real Money-Saving Potential Comes From Buying Food on Sale

One of the situations where a vacuum sealer can really pay for itself is buying discounted meat.

One user described how they had figured out when their local grocery store marked down meat that needed to be sold quickly. Instead of buying one package and trying to eat it immediately, they would take advantage of the discount and buy several packages, then process everything at home, portion it, vacuum seal it, and freeze it.

At one point, they found ribs for only a few dollars per pound after Christmas and bought a large quantity. On another occasion, chicken thighs dropped from nearly $4 per pound to less than $1, so they bought around 20 pounds and processed them in one session.

The interesting part isn't simply that this person found cheap meat. It’s that the vacuum sealer made the discount usable.

Imagine chicken normally costs $3.99 per pound but goes on sale for $0.99. Buying 10 pounds at the sale price represents a $30 difference.

Of course, actual prices and savings vary enormously depending on where you shop. A vacuum sealer doesn't magically make food cheaper.

What it does is give you a practical way to take advantage of a low price without having to consume everything immediately. Instead of looking at a large package of discounted meat and thinking, “There’s no way I can eat all of this,” you start thinking: “How much room do I have in the freezer?” That’s a pretty significant change in shopping habits.

It Can Be Especially Useful If You Live Alone

You might assume vacuum sealers are mainly useful for large families. On the contrary, people living on their own or in small families can benefit greatly from these devices since supermarket packages are not normally made with one individual in mind.

A pound of ground beef is more than enough for one meal. A bulk package of chicken, shrimp, or pork will be even harder to handle.

For instance, there was one user who purchased a cheap vacuum food sealer at about $35 because they were living by themselves and had problems with the bulk size of supermarket packages. They used to purchase a pound of ground beef and separate it into several smaller portions, cooked one and vacuum sealed the rest for later use.

The benefit isn't that the machine somehow makes the food dramatically different. It simply allows you to repackage supermarket-sized portions into your own meal-sized portions. Instead of buying a small, more expensive package every time you want one meal, you can buy the larger package when the price makes sense and divide it yourself. You still buy in bulk. You just don't have to eat in bulk.

If You Use Sous Vide, a Vacuum Sealer Makes Even More Sense

Vacuum packaging and sous vide cooking go together well. Rather than purchasing one piece of meat whenever you wish to cook it, you can get some done ahead of time. You season your meat, cut it into pieces, vacuum package it, and keep it refrigerated or frozen.

All that's left when you decide you wish to eat is the actual cooking process. It turns meal preparation from having to be done every night into something that can be done at the start of the week.

Think of how long it would take to prepare several pounds of chicken, steaks, and pork at once. During the rest of the week, you don't have to get out a cutting board, trim meat, season it, and clean up again.

You simply take out one prepared portion and cook it. So the real convenience isn't the few minutes you spend sealing a bag. It's all the preparation you don't have to repeat later. That's one reason people who start using vacuum sealers for sous vide often end up using them for much more than sous vide cooking.

And It's Not Just for Raw Meat

While meat and fish products could be the most obvious examples of such use, there are several other uses of this equipment. Vacuum sealers are employed not only for packing meat and fish products, but also for other products like cheese, nuts, coffee beans, spices, dried foodstuffs, leftovers, and prepared meals.

For example, one can portion cooked meatloaf or casserole in portions for freezing; another one will separate big packages of shrimp into portions. A camper will prepare food at home, put it into vacuum sealed bags, and take it camping.

Still another one uses a vacuum sealer just because it uses some kinds of food rarely, so he doesn’t have to open a big package each time.

None of these things require a vacuum sealer. That's important.

The point isn't that you can't do them without one.

It's that having a vacuum sealer can make these things considerably easier and more organized.

It Can Even Change How You Think About Leftovers

One other often overlooked advantage of using Tupperware is to take care of your leftovers. What if you made a large portion of meatloaf or casserole? You surely won’t be able to eat it all at once.

If you had just a common box, you would place everything in the fridge and think that you’ll consume it within a few days. In the end, you would leave just a little bit that would be forgotten.

With a vacuum sealer, you can portion the food while it's still fresh, keep what you're going to eat soon, and freeze the rest. Now leftovers aren't necessarily something you need to “get through.” They can become a future meal that's already prepared.

Even one user found himself vacuum sealing already opened packets of snacks due to an amusing unintended consequence; when there was an opened bag of chips sitting in the kitchen, he would automatically reach into the bag and take a handful of chips, regardless of whether he was hungry or not.

That's obviously not a reason to buy a vacuum sealer. But it does illustrate how something as simple as portioning and resealing food can change how you interact with it.

But the Vacuum Sealer Is Not Magic

Here is where we must be realistic. It is worth noting that vacuum sealing is neither sterilization nor a method that preserves perishable foods at room temperature for an indefinite period. The benefits of vacuum sealing include reduction of contact with air, reduction of freezer burn, and convenience in portioning and storage. Refrigeration and freezing of foods that require them will remain essential. The vacuum sealer is not going to rejuvenate stale or spoiled foods, either.

Certain foods need special attention in an oxygen-free storage environment; hence, you should not think that everything will become better just because the air has been removed from it.

Another realistic issue in using vacuum sealers is connected with liquids. Soups, sauces, and marinades can be hard to vacuum seal with a regular external vacuum sealer because the liquid can be sucked by the machine.

In this case, perhaps, the chamber vacuum sealer would be more reasonable for sealing liquids. Therefore, in general terms, a vacuum sealer is a great food storage and portioning solution, but it is not a safety device or a miracle preservation technology.

Can a Vacuum Sealer Actually Save You Money?

This is probably the biggest question. The honest answer is: it can, but the machine itself doesn't automatically save money. The savings come from what it allows you to do.

You can take advantage of discounted meat because you don't have to eat it immediately. You can buy larger packages instead of paying more for small convenience-sized packages. And you can portion and freeze food before it gets forgotten and wasted.

Imagine spending $50 on a vacuum sealer.

If you only use it a few times a year, it may not be worth it.

But if it helps you take advantage of several significant grocery discounts, prevents some food from being thrown away, and makes bulk purchases practical, the machine can potentially pay for itself fairly quickly.

And then there's the less obvious saving: time.

Having prepared portions waiting in the freezer means fewer trips to the grocery store, less daily food preparation, and fewer evenings spent figuring out what to cook. The real value comes from all three: lower food costs + less waste + less time spent preparing meals.

Of Course, Some People Simply Don't Need One

I wouldn't tell everyone to buy a vacuum sealer. If you rarely cook, rarely freeze food, don't buy large packages, and usually eat everything within a couple of days, regular storage bags may be perfectly adequate.

If you buy one steak and eat it within two days, vacuum sealing it isn't going to transform your life. And if you don't have much freezer space, buying a vacuum sealer won't solve that problem either.

The people who benefit most are those who already have a reason to buy and store food in larger quantities:

• You want to buy in bulk, but don't know how to store it.
• You want to take advantage of grocery discounts, but don't want food to go to waste.
• You want to meal prep, but don't want to cook everything from scratch every night.
• You like sous vide and want to prepare meals ahead of time.

If any of those sound like you, the value becomes much easier to see.

So, Is Vacuum Sealer Worth It?

After looking at how people actually use these machines, I think the answer becomes pretty straightforward.

One person uses theirs to process 20 pounds of chicken thighs at once. Another waits for heavily discounted ribs and buys several packages. One who lives alone uses a $35 device that allows one to convert supermarket packs into meals for an individual. There is another person who begins with sous vide cooking, then gets a vacuum sealer, and finally gets a chest freezer.

Their situations are completely different. But the underlying benefit is the same: A vacuum sealer makes food easier to buy, easier to store, and easier to use. It won't magically make groceries cheaper. It won't make food last forever. But it can make it much easier to take advantage of sales, buy larger packages, portion food according to your needs, reduce freezer burn and waste, and prepare meals ahead of time.

Before buying it, ask yourself:

• When I see meat on sale, do I wish I could buy more?
• Do I regularly freeze food?
• Do I purchase packaging that is too large for me to consume at one go?
• Is it true that having portions ready for cooking in the freezer will make things easier for me?

If the answers to most of these questions are in the affirmative, then the vacuum sealer will definitely deserve a place in your kitchen. As time passes, you will start wondering: “How could I have lived without this?”

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