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Oct 25, 2024

This is the Best Vacuum Sealer for My Tiny Kitchen

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. It’s compact, effective, and simple to use as I fill my freezer with homegrown

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

It’s compact, effective, and simple to use as I fill my freezer with homegrown food.

AllRecipes / David Hattan

I grow and preserve hundreds of pounds of fresh produce annually, so you’d think I would be old pals with a vacuum sealer. Yet for the longest time, I eschewed the idea of adding this small appliance to my tiny kitchen. I instead packed my harvest in resealable and washable plastic bags and containers, arguing that I would be constantly opening bags for a cube of basil pesto or a handful of corn kernels and hating the thought of single-use plastic.

After a season of excessive freezer burn on my hard-earned homegrown food, I finally decided to try a vacuum sealer. What a good decision. These small appliances have come a long way since the early model my mom owned in the 1980s—a loud, bulky machine that sealed plastic so thin it resembled disposable shopping bags. The vacuum sealers and bags of that era did little to protect food, burst open with minimal pressure, and convinced me the tool wasn’t worth the kitchen space.

My choice, the Anova Precision Sous Vide Vacuum Sealer, is an entirely different generation of machine. Anova has made a name for itself among sous vide aficionados, but I primarily use the sealer to freeze my garden bounty. Vacuum bags packed with rhubarb, berries, and blanched vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, and snap peas fill my small deep freezer. When I score a catch of fresh trout or a gift of Dungeness crab, the machine safely seals fish and shellfish too.

The Precision sealer is sleek and compact, about twice the size of a classic three-hole paper punch (remember those?). Just three buttons—auto, seal, and pulse—control all functions and are simple to operate. Push-latches on each side release easily to open the unit and then snap securely shut with pressure on the top surface. As an add-on, you can buy an accessory hose that hooks into the clamshell-style sealer to suck air from 1-gallon Precision Port zipper bags.

I thought that Anova’s precut 8.6 x 11.8-inch bags would be too large when freezing my preferred portions of produce, but they’re surprisingly useful. They hold the full 2 pounds of blanched broccoli florets and stalks that I need for broccoli-cheese soup. By putting a flat layer of just 1 pound of raspberries in each precut bag, they stack neatly in the freezer. My longtime techniques of freezing the fresh fruit first on trays and fitting a wide-mouth funnel in the bag to fill it let me quickly store an entire flat of the delicate berries.

The sealer comes with just 10 bags, so right away I grabbed an additional package of precut bags and 11-inch-wide vacuum sealer rolls. Sharp scissors cleanly cut the rolled plastic to size, whether wide bags to line up asparagus stalks or half-width bags for handfuls of snap peas. Cutting the plastic half as wide leaves just one pre-sealed edge, so it tends to curl. I solve that by sealing the bag’s bottom and then closing the opposite end with a paperclip before I neatly seal the long side.

The vacuum sealer’s instructions are primarily graphics, but they do state to “avoid using liquids in the bag.” This goes beyond thin stocks and soups. Even blanched and drained broccoli is too wet to seal using the auto function: The machine runs until it draws water to the bag mouth, where it prevents the heat strip from sealing the edge. Patting blanched food as dry as possible in a clean tea towel helps, but the pulse function works best here. When manually controlling the vacuum, I can release the pulse button before water moves up the bag and create a secure seal every time.

My single-use plastic fears have waned with the durability of the material. Each time I snip off one edge and empty a bag, I wash and reseal it for ever-smaller portions. Unfortunately, the plastic is not recyclable; instead, Anova partners with Plastic Bank to reduce plastic pollution and calls its bags “plastic neutral.”

I chose the Anova Precision Sous Vide Vacuum Sealer for its simplicity and small size, which makes it easy to use anywhere and to store. Consider these options if you want additional functions and features.

Handheld vacuum sealers attach to a port on specially designed plastic bags and containers for airtight storage. The bags zip close and can be hand washed, and the containers are dishwasher safe, so both have a longer reuse lifespan than standard vacuum bags. I like the FoodSaver Cordless Handheld Food Vacuum Sealer because it’s small enough to fit in a drawer or cupboard for daily use.

Before I brought a clamshell-style vacuum sealer into my kitchen, I used this cordless FoodSaver model to keep fresh produce, like avocados, from oxidizing. The sealed bags stayed airtight for five days, with little discoloration and minimal softening of the avocado. At that time, the bags were for fresh food storage only, but FoodSaver has since come out with compatible freezer-safe bags.

Anova makes a similar handheld unit, but its resealable, freezer-safe bags only come in a gallon size. FoodSaver’s quart-size bags fit my kitchen needs better. They’re ideal for packing with cubes of minced garlic in oil or homemade curry paste, freezing, and resealing as I remove a cube at a time.

If you don’t yet own a vacuum sealer and would find both a clamshell-style and a handheld sealer useful, the VS3130 model from FoodSaver gives you the complete package. It’s more compact and affordable than FoodSaver’s other all-in-one models yet has a full range of functions. The heat seal strip closes up precut bags and rolls, and the handheld sealer, which retracts into the main unit, attaches to the sealing port of FoodSaver’s zipper bags and containers.

The model is large enough for roll storage and a bag cutter so that you’re always sealing perfectly straight edges. It has modes for dry, moist, pulse, and marinate for expanded control. The dishwasher-safe drip tray pops out, making clean-up simple if the vacuum sucks liquid from the bag. Friends use this vacuum sealer not just for freezing food but also while packing for backcountry paddling trips. They told me it keeps precooked meats and raw produce fresher and unbruised even after nine days on the river.

When researching vacuum sealers, I considered the NutriChef PKVS18 as an affordable yet full-featured option. It functions much like the Anova Precision with a series of simple button controls, but this NutriChef sealer has both dry and moist settings. It lets you switch from normal to gentle mode, but otherwise, it runs automatically as it sucks out air and seals compatible bags. A button stops either operation, giving a little less control over the suction than a manual pulse option.

The clamshell-style sealer comes with a suction hose that connects the machine to an included vacuum-sealing wine stopper and to containers (sold separately). It’s wider yet slightly shorter than the Anova Precision, so it takes up more space and weighs a bit more yet comes with a narrower roll and bags. Like many compact sealers, it lacks bag roll storage, a bag cutter, and a removable drip tray. You can choose a black or silver sealer body.

This Nesco model has been an Allrecipes recommendation for years. Since the brand also makes the food dehydrator I use in my own kitchen, I considered the VS-12 for my collection of food preservation tools. This vacuum sealer has you choose the seal setting and the pressure and then runs automatically based on your selections. Besides dry and moist sealing, it can automatically form a double seal for extra security. You can also pulse the pressure and seal bags manually. Other buttons make canisters airtight through a hose attachment (both sold separately) and marinate the food inside by sucking out air in stages.

Although this Nesco sealer comes with more controls than the Anova Precision and fits bags that are a smidge wider, it’s more than three times the width. It also weighs far more too (10 pounds), partly because storage and a cutter for bag rolls are built into the machine. If you have the space and plan to use a vacuum sealer not just for freezing and sous vide but also to eliminate food waste, this machine will get the job done.

Julie Laing has been a writer and editor for 25-plus years, focusing on original recipes, kitchen tools, and the stories around them. She is the author of “The Complete Guide to Pickling,” the Flathead Beacon food columnist, and a reviewer and recipe developer for numerous other publications. Each year, her garden produces hundreds of pounds of tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, corn, rhubarb, berries, and more that she freezes for year-round use. She’s still finding new uses for her vacuum sealer. Her latest project is sealing heads of homegrown garlic in vacuum bags and holding them in a low-heat chamber for weeks until they darken to black garlic.