Can You Vacuum Seal Foods Packed in Brine? Olives, Feta and Pickles Explained

You open a jar of kalamata olives for a charcuterie board on Friday night. You use maybe a third of them. By Wednesday, the rest have gone soft, the brine smells off, and you're standing over the sink trying to decide if they're still safe. Same story with that block of feta — it was perfect crumbled over a salad, and now it's sitting in a puddle of its own milky liquid, slowly turning rubbery.

So you think: I have a vacuum sealer. Problem solved, right?

Not exactly. And this is the part almost nobody explains honestly. Some brine-packed foods should never be vacuum sealed the way they come out of the jar. Doing it wrong doesn't just fail — it ruins the food faster.

Why Straight-Up Vacuum Sealing Wet, Brined Foods Backfires

Here's the physics. A vacuum sealer pulls air out of the bag and — with a strong pump — pulls liquid too. That liquid gets sucked toward the seal bar, and any moisture trapped in the seal zone prevents the bag from fusing shut. You end up with a weak seal that leaks air back in within a day or two.

But there's a bigger issue than a bad seal. Feta and olives need their brine. That salty liquid is what keeps feta's texture creamy instead of crumbly-dry, and what keeps olives tasting like olives instead of oxidized mush. If you drain them, vacuum them, and stash them in the fridge, you've solved the storage problem by destroying the thing you were trying to preserve.

So for these two, the answer is short: keep them in brine, in the fridge, in a smaller container. That's it. Pour the olives and brine into a jar that's just big enough so the liquid covers everything, seal it, refrigerate. Feta keeps 5–7 days this way past opening; olives hold up for weeks. You don't need a machine for this. You need a smaller jar.

When Vacuum Sealing Brined Foods Actually Works

Now the useful part. There are two scenarios where a vacuum sealer genuinely earns its keep with these foods.

Scenario 1: You drain, portion, and freeze. Feta freezes well if you drain it first and portion it into blocks. Pat it dry with paper towel, vacuum seal, and freeze for up to 3 months. Same with pickles you plan to cook with — drained, sealed, frozen, they'll hold for months and go straight into a braise or a relish.

Scenario 2: Short-term storage of drained items you'll eat within a few days. If you drained a jar of pickles for a burger night and have leftovers, sealing them dry buys you a couple extra days in the fridge versus an open container. Not weeks — days.

The rule of thumb: if the food needs its liquid to stay good, keep the liquid. If you're willing to change its texture by draining and freezing, vacuum sealing is fair game.

The Step People Skip: Drying Before You Seal

This is where most failed attempts happen. You drain the feta, you're impatient, you seal it while it's still tacky — and the seal fails.

Do this instead:

• Drain in a colander, then lay pieces on a paper towel.
• Blot the surface, flip, blot again. Give it 10 minutes to air-dry.
• Any residual liquid that gets pulled toward the seal during vacuuming? That's what a drip cup is for. It catches the liquid before it reaches the pump, so you're not fighting a wet seal or risking the machine.

The FreshLock Pro's -60 kPa pull is strong enough to evacuate a bag in seconds — which is exactly why you don't want loose brine anywhere near the seal bar. Strong suction plus wet food equals a mess. Strong suction plus dry food equals a tight, reliable seal.

What Not to Do

• Don't vacuum seal olives in their brine. You'll get a leaky seal and bruised fruit.
• Don't vacuum seal feta in its brine. Same problem, plus the brine gets pulled out and the cheese dries out.
• Don't seal anything straight from the jar without draining and blotting. This is the single most common reason people give up on vacuum sealing wet foods.
• Don't expect vacuum sealing to extend brine-packed foods beyond what refrigeration already does. It won't. It's a tool for dry and frozen, not a replacement for brine.

Be honest with yourself about which category your food falls into before you reach for the sealer. Half the time, the right move is just a smaller jar.

Bottom Line

Brine-packed foods aren't a vacuum sealer's job — and pretending otherwise is how you end up with rubbery feta and a failed seal. Keep olives and feta in their brine, in the smallest container that fits. Save the vacuum sealer for drained, blotted, portioned food you're freezing or eating within a few days. Match the tool to the job, and both the food and the machine will treat you better.

FreshLock Pro — -60 kPa, $74.99 Free shipping over $89. 30-day returns. 1-year warranty.

More Reading

• Vacuum Sealer for Cheese Storage
• How to Vacuum Seal Liquids Without Messing Up Your Sealer