For most people, eggplant is the key ingredient to some specific dishes that they love to make, but not an everyday use item. This means that wasting eggplant can be quite common when it is purchased for a specific recipe.
This is a big frustration to many people who hate to waste food, and it can be annoying to try and track down eggplant if they are out of season as well.
Thankfully, you can vacuum seal eggplant if you take the time to prepare it to be stored in this way. With proper preparation, your eggplant can be stored reliably for months.
This can eliminate your guilty feelings if your eggplant has gone bad while being stored in the fridge, and it can make the process of preparing meals so much easier as well.
If you are ready to learn more about whether or not you can vacuum seal eggplant, you need to keep reading!
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How to Vacuum Seal Eggplant
One of the key things that you need to realize is that you cannot store eggplant without doing some preparation. This is one of the few vegetables that produces gases that can ruin the seal on your vacuum sealed bags if it is not prepared for storage in the right way.
You will need to take the time to prepare your eggplant so that it can be stored correctly in vacuum sealed bags.
The first thing you will need to do is wash your eggplant with cold water and remove the skin with a vegetable peeler. You will then need to slice it into round discs.
Make sure that these discs are about 1/3 inch thick. Add the slices to a pot of boiling water that has a couple of squeezes of lemon juice in it. The lemon juice will help the eggplant to preserve its color.
You will need to submerge the slices in the boiling water for four minutes. Drain the pot when you are done, and turn it into an ice bath. Soak the eggplant slices in the ice bath for five minutes.
Drain the ice water off and pat your eggplant slices dry. You will need to make sure that they have dried off thoroughly before you vacuum seal them.
Wash your hands thoroughly before you start vacuum sealing. Adding bacteria to your vacuum sealing bags can lead to food that goes bad even though it has been vacuum sealed.
Make sure that you always have clean hands when you work with your vacuum sealing bags to prevent food waste due to bacteria.
Using a flat surface, put your eggplant slices into the vacuum sealing bags and make sure that they do not clump up in a ball at the bottom of the bag.
You will need to keep the slices from rolling to the bottom of the bags to get the best seal and to prevent issues with lost texture and flavor due to moisture trapped between the slices.
Make sure that you consider separating your eggplant slices into smaller portions so that you can thaw out just as much eggplant as you need each time that you cook.
This will help you to prevent waste, and it makes the process of thawing your eggplant much easier as well. Make sure that you also label the vacuum sealing bags with the date that you sealed your eggplant slices.
This is a key factor in making sure that you use your eggplant in date order.
How Long Will Eggplant Keep in Vacuum Sealed Bags?
Vacuum sealed bags of eggplant that are placed in the freezer will keep for as long as six months. You should make sure to check the seals on your bags of eggplant in the freezer so that you can use any eggplant that seems to be losing its solid seal before it goes bad.
Eggplant that is vacuum sealed and placed in the fridge will keep for about three weeks. You cannot store eggplant at room temperature even if it has been vacuum sealed.
Make sure that you store your eggplant where it will not be pressed flat by items that are placed on top of it. This can impact texture and lead to the browning of the eggplant as well.
You will have the best luck if your seal your bags relatively flat and you stack them somewhere that will not require that they be moved around a lot to access other foods and items in the fridge or freezer.
This method of storage will allow you to take your eggplant with you on camping trips, or it can make it easy to take your eggplant with you if you are going to be cooking at someone else’s house.
Eggplant can take some time to prepare as well, so freezing your eggplant slices in a vacuum sealed bag can make this part of your cooking process much easier overall.
Vacuum Sealing Eggplant Can be Easy
If you have been worried about buying eggplant and wasting a large portion of it because it will not keep for long in the fridge, vacuum sealing is the answer to this need!
You can easily keep your eggplant good for the long haul if you have a vacuum sealer and you take the time to prepare your eggplant to be stored.
Taking the time to prepare your eggplant for vacuum sealing can make all the difference in your ability to store it for the long term, and you will save time when cooking as well.
Make sure that you have the right kind of vacuum sealing bags on hand and that you allow your eggplant slices to dry before you store them.
Taking the time to prepare and get your eggplant ready for storage can make all the difference in your vacuum sealing experience and performance.
Vacuum sealed eggplant can keep for up to six months in the freezer, which makes this vegetable a great candidate for this storage method.
I am Brianna, a self-published author with a passion for sharing my knowledge and expertise on various topics with people looking to find the perfect items for their needs. I love ensuring that the right informative content is available to people looking for the right information. I am an avid horseback rider and reader when I am not writing.
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