Preserving Chili in your freezer
Originally posted Sep 22, 2009 on old blog.
How to keep Chili in the freezer..
A few years ago, this technique was recommended by one of my friends who happens to enjoy a good bowl of red now an again. I took his advice and have been doing it ever since.
I like to make an extra pot of red (NO BEANS – remember, they go sour on you – this won’t work with the vegetarian variant) let it cool completely then using small glass meatloaf sized “baking pans” and a little wax paper, freeze the chili into little meal-sized “bricks”. The next day, after removing them from the pans (thus the wax paper) I will vacuum seal each “brick” then label the packet with what it is and the date it was prepared. Back into the freezer it goes.
I have found this “pre-freezing” process works very well and will permit me to vacuum seal just about anything, liquid or no – so it is a very, very handy trick to know.
Why vacuum pack? Well, I have left bricks of chili packed in this fashion in the freezer for 3 months – pulled one out, reheated it and doggone if it didn’t taste like 2nd day chili! It would probably last longer – but 3 months is my “personal limit” for frozen foods.
This little trick works very well as a preparation for using Chili as a side-dish at just about any occasion. Tailgating, backyard BBQ, camping, fishing – anywhere you can heat it back up – its all good!
I have, however, found that it is hard to keep chili frozen when you have kids and grandkids that know you do this. Probably best not to “advertise” if you want it to stay in there more than a week. 
Afterthought: The vacuum packer I elected but buy some time ago, and have had GREAT luck with is called the FoodSaver (I bought the best one I could find from CostCo). I have never owned a Seal-a-meal and having had such great luck with the FoodSaver probably never will. Simply stated it works for me and the self-made bags are better than any freezer bag I’ve found yet.