If you hate food waste, you probably hate when herbs and ingredients that you use once in a while go bad before you can use them. Being able to prevent wasted food with your vacuum sealer can make it much easier to have the food you need on hand at all times.
Herbs can keep really well under the right conditions, and your vacuum sealer can help make this possible.
If you hate to try and keep herbs fresh or use them up before they go bad, your vacuum sealer will help you keep them fresh for the long term. This is a great way to keep most herbs fresh for months or even years.
There are some herbs that cannot be frozen without impacting their flavor and texture, but you can still keep these herbs in the fridge for a few months.
If you are ready to learn more about whether or not you can vacuum seal herbs, you need to keep reading!
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How do I Prepare Herbs for Vacuum Sealing?
Blanching herbs is a really good idea in most cases. This helps protect their texture and their flavor. Blanching is really simple if you have a strainer spoon and a pot you can boil water in. Make a bowl of ice water as well.
Blanching works best for leafy greens like basil, chives, cilantro, dill, mint, and parsley. Other herbs that are more stemmy will not benefits as much from this treatment in advance. In fact, some stemmy herbs will be negatively impacted by being blanched.
There might be a little bit of experimentation that you need to do to see which herbs you like to blanch and which you are fine with not blanching.
You will want to place the herbs in boiling water for about ten seconds, then remove them and put them right into the ice water. Let the herbs cool, and then dry them on a paper towel.
Allow the herbs to dry fully before you vacuum seal them. This is the right way to manage most herbs, but some of the most delicate herbs cannot handle this kind of treatment.
Coriander and parsley are best to just seal up and keep in the fridge. You will not get as much time from your storage efforts with these really delicate herbs, but they will still keep for a lot longer when stored in a vacuum sealing bag.
Your blanched herbs will keep for years in the freezer if they have been properly prepared.
Always make sure that you wash your hands before you do any vacuum sealing. You will want to be sure that you do not accidentally seal bacteria into your vacuum sealed bags.
This will cause the herbs that you have sealed up to go bad even though you have sealed them up properly in vacuum sealed bags.
Tips for Sealing Up Herbs With Your Vacuum Sealer
You will want to be sure that you do not try and seal up too many things into each vacuum sealer bag. If you store too many herbs in one bag, they will trap moisture between them, and they will probably go bad.
You will also have more trouble keeping the herbs from clumping up in the bag. You will have more luck getting your herbs into a nice, smooth, even layer in the bag if you do not put too many herbs into each bag.
Some herbs are harder to fold into bags with ease, and you might need bigger bags for this kind of plant.
You should be sure that you have enough real estate to work with to be sure that the bag will seal really well. Make sure that you label each bag with the date to be sure that you don’t forget to use herbs that have been sealed a while ago.
Another benefit to sealing up a small portion per bag is that you will not waste any herbs that you cannot use per recipe.
Remember that a small number of herbs will go a long way in any recipe. You should not seal up all of your herbs of each type in one bag because the portion that you have not used will still have to be thrown out.
It is also not wise to seal up mixed bags of herbs since their flavor can impact one another while they are in the same bag together.
How Long Will Herbs Keep in a Vacuum Sealed Bag?
Vacuum sealing will make your herbs last for a long time. If you cannot store your herbs in the freezer, they will keep for about three months in the fridge. Herbs that are stored in the freezer will keep for as long as a year.
You should always keep track of the dates on your sealed bags, and you should make sure that you verify that your bags are keeping their seal as well.
Sometimes vacuum sealing bags can lose their seal, and when this happens, you need to be sure to use this bag first before the herbs go bad.
This is the best way to make sure that you keep track of the status of your stored herbs so that you don’t waste any of them.
Herbs Can Keep for a Long Time When Stored Using a Vacuum Sealer
If you are tired of throwing out your herbs because they have gone bad, you need to start using your vacuum sealer to keep them fresh for months or even years.
You will want to be sure that you know which herbs cannot be stored in the freezer due to their texture, but you can still get months of storage out of herbs that are vacuum sealed and placed in the fridge.
Herbs keep really well when stored in small amounts and when sealed up correctly. You will want to be sure that you blanch most of your herbs before you store them, and make sure that you wash your hands before you store your herbs using your vacuum sealer for best results.
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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