Here’s a pet peeve of mine – cooking perfectly good food, then wasting it. My family is not good about eating leftovers. I eat them, but my husband and daughter rarely do.

One of the greatest inventions I’ve found is a vacuum sealer! If you haven’t used one, it’s awesome! It comes with rolls of plastic bags that you cut to fit the food, then seal both ends. It vacuums all of the air out of the bag, so your food stays fresher for a much longer time than other methods.

I use my vacuum sealer for a number of things. I tend to buy meat from a large club-type store, so it comes in big packages that my family cannot eat at one time. Vacuum sealer to the rescue! I package the meat into quantities that work for me, vacuum seal it, then freeze it. Be sure to label what is in the package, the date, and you may want to include the weight if that is important to know. I also do the same with cheese, and if it’s already grated, I often put it in amounts of 1-2 cups that work in my recipes.

The biggest money and time saver!

One of the best ways I’ve found to use my vacuum sealer is to portion out and freeze already cooked food. You know that casserole that you just made, but you’ve got half of it left? Why not freeze it for another day? For foods such as this (or any foods containing liquid), you need to freeze it in another container first, then take the frozen food out and vacuum seal. Vacuum sealing will keep the food for much longer than in other containers. I also do this when I make things like beans. Since my bean recipe takes a lot of time to prepare and cook, I make a large batch so I don’t have to do it very often. Once they are done, I separate them the beans into several small containers, freeze, then vacuum seal. Instant side dish!

You can also vacuum seal dried food and nearly anything else that you want to keep air out of. The other nice thing about vacuum-sealed items is that they take up less space! Also, you don’t need a fancy model to get started. Mine is very plain, and I’ve had it for years. It has paid for itself many times over. It’s one of the best investments that I’ve made!