The NutriChef vacuum seals has two speeds and a delicate mode to seal a variety of foods. It comes with a starter kit that includes five pre-made sealer bags, a roll of plastic to make additional bags and a vacuum pipe for sealing containers. It also has a five-year warranty, which is a lot more than the industry standard of one year, which makes the NutriChelf a good value for a food vacuum sealer.
This machine is a little hard to use at first because it takes a lot of muscle to get the lid to snap shut and lock. But after a while the NutriChef had been used enough that the lock was easier to close.
During the sealing process this machine is a bit loud. There are other sealers that are louder, but you still need to raise your voice a little to be heard while using the NutriChef. It does a nice job of sealing meats and dry foods. The delicate setting pulls very little air from the bag leaving a lot of room around your foods so they’re not crushed. And while the entire process is automatic, you can stop and have the NutriChef seal the bag at any time.
The NutriChef has difficulty sealing wet foods, though. It extracted two grams of pineapple juice during the vacuum process, which is a lot and also proof of the vacuum’s suction power. But after several attempts, and even after we made sure the bag wasn’t wet from the juice extraction, this machine just didn’t seal the bag at all. During testing we discovered this is a common problem among vacuum sealers; only a few machines were able to handle juicy foods. The Hamilton Beach NutriFresh 78220 is one that does seal wet foods well.
Summary
Overall the NutriFresh vacuum sealer does well at preserving foods that aren’t wet or juicy, and its delicate setting seals pastries and other soft foods without crushing them. It is a bit loud during the vacuum and sealing process, and it takes a bit of muscle at first to close and lock the lid. After a few uses the machine is broken in a bit and locking the lid isn’t as difficult.