How to Vacuum Seal Liquids with a Food Saver?

Broths, soups, stews, consommes – you name it. These delicious additions to any meal are not only flavorful but also quite healthy. However, preparing them for each meal is a bit of a hassle – but is there any way to store liquid food for longer than a couple of days? Indeed, you can choose to vacuum seal your liquids. 

While it may be a common practice to vacuum seal solid food, doing so with liquids may prove to be tricky if you don’t know how to go about it. However, you can do the same with liquids as well – provided you use a decent commercial grade sealer and the right technique to do so. 

Here, you can read up on a couple of such techniques on how to vacuum seal liquids, depending on the kind of vacuum sealer you have as well. Prepare to extend the shelf-life of your liquids with a few, simple steps and make your meal prep quicker than ever.

Can You Vacuum Seal Liquids with a Food Sealer? 

While the process might be more complex than sealing solid food, yes, vacuum sealing liquids – or any kind of wet food – is indeed possible. The difficulty of the process, however, largely depends on the kind of equipment you’re using. The best and easiest method, thus, is a using a chamber sealer.

Vacuum Sealing Liquids with an Edge Sealer – 

An edge sealer – also known as a suction sealer or external sealer – is one of the easiest ways to vacuum seal your food. It is used for a wide variety of functions, both commercially as well as in homes, owing to the simplicity of the procedure with which food is sealed using an edge sealer. 

With an edge sealer, all you have to do is place the bag of food with the open edge of the bag in the sealer, and you can expect your food to be sealed seamlessly in a matter of minutes. Even fresh vegetable produce can be sealed conveniently using an edge sealer. However, this procedure can get somewhat complicated when you introduce liquids in the mix. 

Since an edge sealer essentially sucks all the air present inside the bag for efficient sealing, it is possible that all the liquid may be sucked in as well. But can you vacuum seal soup? There are indeed ways to get around this problem and efficiently vacuum seal your liquids as well.

Ice-Cube Method

• For this method, all you need to do is pour your liquids/wet food into an ice tray, so that it can freeze into ice cubes.
• Once it has frozen properly, you can then put the frozen liquid food cubes into a bag and then vacuum seal them with a suction sealer. This prevents the liquids from being suctioned into the edge sealer as well.

Freezing Method

• Once again, you can freeze your liquids in order to avoid them being suctioned into the vacuum sealer. For this method, you can put your liquid in the bag and then freeze it by keeping it in an upright position.
• Once this is done, you can vacuum seal the bag without worrying about the liquid being sucked in, since it has already frozen and solidified.

Our Reviews of Affordable Domestic Grade Edge Sealers:

• Seal-A-Meal Vacuum Sealer Review
• Nesco VS-02 Vacuum Sealer Review
• FoodSaver V2244 Vacuum Sealer Review

Vacuum Sealing Liquids with a Chamber Sealer – 

As said before, vacuum sealing liquids can be made exponentially easier simply by using a chamber sealer – effectively answering the question of “can you vacuum seal liquids.” A chamber sealer is a device that is most likely to be seen in commercial organizations that process food on a large scale, and using one in a household is unusual owing to the financial investments one might have to put in. 

However, it is a handy purchase if you need to vacuum seal soup frequently and in large batches as well – and especially if you’re a small business owner, since you may need to make large batches of liquids and store them all at once. A chamber sealer can make your work easier and seal your liquids in no time with minimal risks, as opposed to an edge sealer.

Using a chamber sealer is different from using an edge sealer, and this difference makes it all the more convenient to use. A chamber sealer changes the air pressure in the bag with liquid in it in order to seal it, as opposed to an edge sealer using suctioning methods to do so. Hence, chamber sealers eliminate the risk of your liquid/wet food being suctioned out of the bag during the vacuum sealing process. 

Does the shelf life of vacuum-sealed liquids vary from that of solids?

While there is no way to tell the exact difference between the shelf life of liquid and solid foods, it can be gathered that the shelf life of both, when stored in the refrigerator, is almost the same. 

Vacuum sealed solid food can be stored in the refrigerator for a period of several months and even years while still being completely fresh, while vacuum packing liquids can be stored in the refrigerator while retaining its freshness for at least several months. 

Making exceptionally large batches of soup or stew and then using it over several months can only be possible by vacuum sealing.

Wrapping Up – 

While vacuum sealing liquids might not be the most popular method of preserving your liquids, it’s certainly the handiest and ensures that your liquids can be stored for exceedingly long periods of time. 

As you’ve observed, there are a number of problems you can face on how to vacuum seal soup with an edge sealer – but it is certainly not impossible to do so, especially keeping in mind the above methods. 

However, for quicker and more efficient vacuum sealing for large batches of liquids, it is best to get a chamber sealer. While it is certainly an investment, it is worth it for heavier usage. You can now expect to vacuum seal all your liquids henceforth with your sealer of choice!