The 6 Very Best Food Vacuum Sealers

Type

Size

Type:External| Size:5.8” x 7” x 4.3”

The Anova Pro was my first foray into vacuum sealing about a year ago — and I’ve kept it around and in surprisingly heavy rotation ever since. It’s exceedingly simple to operate: You cut your desired bag size from the roll with the built-in cutter, place the edge of your bag onto the outermost liner, close the machine, and seal a bottom with the “seal” button. Then you put your food inside the bag, insert the open edge back into the chamber, and pick your next move: One button seals until it automatically until it senses all the air is gone, and another lets you pulse seal, only pushing the air out as you press a button so you have a bit more control (helpful for when there’s liquids, like a marinade). There’s also an option to double seal for extra insurance; even when I shook a bag filled with tomato sauce, there was absolutely no leakage. The entire process only takes a couple of minutes.

Strategist senior editorWinnie Yangbought the Anova after reading about how much I like it. “I got a FoodSaver eight years ago, the GameSaver model, and it was enormous and unwieldy and an eyesore. I never wanted to use it,” she says. “Something about the compactness and simple interface makes this feel more approachable.” Even her 8-year-old can operate the machine.

The fact that it’s easy to use isn’t a plus only for beginners like Yang and me. James Peisker, co-founder ofPorter Roadin Nashville uses it for food storage and sous viding and assures it gets the job done. “There aren’t a lot of buttons or bells and whistles,” he says. “It’s very straightforward — very user-friendly.” He says he appreciates the accessible price point, too, a sentiment shared by Dave Yasuda, director of marketing atSnake River Farms. Yasuda is responsible for generating a lot of the photography his company puts out — meaning he sous-vides a lot to ensure a consistent look of the plated pieces of pork and beef. In the office they have a big, expensive machine. “But I often have to take this show on the road,” he says. “I’ve tried a lot of different ones, and sometimes they can be wimpy. This has a lot of suction. It’s powerful.”

Still, it’s the smallest model on this list (with the exception of Zwilling’s handheld system that comes with accompanyingcontainers), imperative for someone like me who lives in an apartment and doesn’t have that much storage to give up to nonessential appliances. I’ll also note that I think it looks sleek with its matte black exterior, and the parts truly feel well-made. The less expensive models below come highly recommended, but don’t have quite the same full-package appeal.

Type:External| Size:18.3” x 5.1” x 11.8”

The price of the Anova isn’t bad, but I wanted to find a reliable machine for even less, especially given that some folks might be making a foray into vacuum sealing for the first time. When I tested the Nesco, the biggest difference I noticed between it and the Anova was in its build. The Nesco is made from cheaper plastic — and you can tell. (That said, the shape and size of it are nice, and it’s relatively small and unobtrusive.) There are two separate compartments: one in the back that holds a bag roll and the other in the front with the vacuuming and sealing chamber. The lid on the latter takes a fair amount of force to close (in fact, it took me a few tries the very first time I used it to realize it wasn’t properly locked in). The Nesco is also slightly more finicky than the Anova in terms of bag placement. If the bag opening isn’t laid just so inside the chamber, it won’t seal after vacuum (again, this took me a few tries in my first use, which wasn’t the case with the Anova). Once I got the hang of it, however, it worked well. If you plan to vacuum seal food more occasionally, I think you can’t beat the price.

I heard about the Nesco from Ryan Dolliver, owner ofPalmettoin Brooklyn, who uses it at the bar for infusing and preserving ingredients for cocktails, a practice where “consistency is paramount,” he says. Other methods for flavoring creams or syrups can suffer from variations in temperature and movement, but with vacuum sealing, recipes turn out the exact same every single time. The machine also allows him to keep seasonal produce fresh for months. Finally, because he lives down the street from his bar, he sometimes uses it to seal foods to store in his own freezer or to sous vide at home. Overall, “it’s a very low cost of entry and does what it says it does every time,” he says. “It’s a consumer-grade product, but I use it in a professional setting, and it still works great.”

Type:External| Size:Multiple pieces

The Zwilling Fresh and Save Starter Set is one that doesn’t quite fit the mold of the others on this list: It’s a handheld cylindrical pump, less than a foot tall, that works in conjunction with specific Zwilling bags and containers by sucking the air directly through valves on each receptacle. Indeed, it’s like a cross between vacuum-sealing machines and regularfood storage containers, which is why you’ll find it in my guide to those, too. It’s a system that looks and feels a bit more approachable to the average cook, one of the reasons it comes eagerly recommended by recipe developer and cookbook authorJessie Sheehanand recipe developer and food bloggerNicole Modic. It’s also much easier to store than a full machine. “If I had a big one I wouldn’t use it,” Modic says. “And the containers themselves are multipurpose. I can use themwithoutvacuum sealing if I know I’m going to eat something within a day or two.”

Both pros say the tool is incredibly easy to use and that you can see the air being sucked away in less than a minute. “It really appeals to the make-ahead girl in me,” Sheehan says. “I love that you can prep ingredients — carrots, celery, whatever — and maybe you’re not touching those chopped up veggies for a week, but they stay fresh.” Modic says she’s amazed how it makes berries, a highly perishable ingredient because of high moisture levels, last two weeks in the fridge. While she doesn’t use the bags quite as often, Modic says she appreciates them for marinating meats in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise. And, she says, the charge lasts months.

Type:External| Size:7.2” x 16.3” x 7.6”

FoodSaver is probably the most recognizable brand on this list to the average cook. It’s certainly the first, and really even only, vacuum sealer brand I was aware of before delving into the topic. Still, I gave it this specific designation — that it’s best for canning — because, according to the experts I spoke with, it’s especially good for that function (and it’s also more expensive and bulkier than my best overall pick). For butcher Kimberly Plafke, the FoodSaver’s canning attachment, which is nestled in a compartment at the top of the machine, has been helpful for making jam. It lets her seal the lid once she’s filled the jar, and extend the life of the spread from just a couple of weeks to up to a few months. The machine is generally a solid and reliable one, too, even if you don’t plan on using the canning attachment. “I find it super helpful,” Plafke says. “It’s a space-saver because you’re taking all the air out. You can organize your fridge and freezer so much better. I’m a crazy coupon lady and if I see a good deal on something at the grocery store, I can divide and then vacuum-seal and save it for ages.”

Anthony Accardi, owner of Brooklyn’sTransmitter Brewing, uses his FoodSaver four to seven days a week — “probably as much as my stove,” he told me. “It has long legs outside of straightforward sous-vide use. I use it to make quick pickles, and for fermenting. It takes freezer burn out of the equation. You can marinate something for ten minutes instead of overnight and get the same amount of flavor. I cure pastrami, bacon, and ham in it.” As for the machine itself, Accardi calls it a “well-designed unit.” He particularly likes the view window which helps to manage feeding the bag and to see what’s going on inside. He’s owned his for several years with, as he noted, very frequent use. “I’m kind of surprised that it’s lasted so long for a home unit,” he says. “I don’t baby it.”

Type:External| Size:15” x 12” x 6.3”

Aaron Foster, owner of Brooklyn’sFoster Sundry, has been using this VacPak at home for the past six years. For him, its primary benefit is how compact and organized it makes his freezer and pantry. In the former, he stores meat and sauces, which spread thin when you seal them and then become stackable. He also uses the vacuum sealer to extend a given season, he says, preserving pitted sour cherries and cooked-down sungold tomatoes to pull out in the winter. When it comes to dry storage, he tightly closes any unfinished packages of pasta, beans, and grains. “It’s much better than having a bunch of open clipped half bags in our cabinet,” he says. Foster also appreciates that the machine accommodates one continuous roll of plastic “so if you’re sealing a tiny bag of yeast versus something bigger for a sauce, you can get exactly what you need and cut it off to your specifications.”

Kate Kavanaugh, co-owner ofWestern Daughters Butcher Shoppe, and her husband — who not only own a butcher shop but are also avid homesteaders — also use this machine. (In fact, they have the 16-inch model to accommodate larger cuts of meat, but believe the 12-inch should be plenty big for most tasks.) “We use it pretty heavily,” Kavanaugh says. “We raise all of our own meat, as well as enough to cover a small share program, and have had this one for over two years. It’s never going to be as good as chamber machines, but I can’t imagine a regular consumer needing that. And it is more powerful than the FoodSaver. It has really decent suction power, and a decent seal bar.”

Type:Chamber| Size:13” x 19” x 14”

If for any reason you’re interested in serious vacuum-sealing, this chamber model is actually somewhat reasonably sized for an industrial-quality machine (whereas others literally wouldn’t fit in a home kitchen) and reasonably priced (compared to the upwards of several thousand dollars those can cost). Stefano Diaz, owner and head butcher atThe Meat Wagonin Kingston, New York uses a slightly bigger version of it. “We’re doing heavier sealing,” he says, “but it’s also very user-friendly. You have to change the oil with it, like you do with a lawn mower, but it’s easy. Surprisingly enough, a customer told me the other day they have one. If you do a crazy amount of cooking it might be worth it. It holds more, and it’s faster.”

For slightly more money (though still quite moderate for a commercial machine), you can get theVacMaster, recommended by Chris Carter, the other co-founder ofPorter Road. “If you have the space for it, it’ll be there forever, and you’d be inclined to really utilize it,” he says. It’s a couple of inches bigger than the VacPak and while “it might look intimidating just because of the size, it’s actually very easy to use,” he says. “You put whatever in the bag, lay the bag across the rail on the inside, close the lid, and turn it on. That’s it.”