Free Home Canning Recipes

Home canning is a great way to preserve quality, locally grown food for later use. You may can fruits and vegetables from your own garden, or produce you've picked up at the local farmers market. Canning food preserves it for a long time. Canned food doesn't require electricity to keep it from spoiling like frozen food does. This lens contains a collection of my favorite home canning recipes, as well as some home canning basics to ensure food safety. Hope that you enjoy the lens and have fun stocking your pantry with your own home canning.

One of the first things you need to understand about home canning is which foods can be canned using a water bath canner and which foods require a pressure canner. This photo taken from a home canning guide prepared by Utah State University shows clearly which foods are acidic enough to be canned in water and which foods are not acidic enough. Low acid foods must be canned using a pressure canner. Foods like salsa, containing peppers, tomatoes, and a variety of other high and low acid ingredients, often have lemon juice or vinegar added to be safely canned at home in a water bath canner. If a home canning recipe calls for lemon juice, lime juice or vinegar to increase acidity, it is important that the ratios of the home canning recipe are maintained exactly.

Here are the basics of water bath canning at home:

* A water bath canner should be filled full enough that the water is 2 inches above the top of your canning jars.

* If you live in an area with hard water adding a few tablespoons of white vinegar to the canning water will keep hard water build up off the canning jars.

* Use a canning jar lifter to place the canning jars into the boiling water. Be careful not to tip the canning jars to prevent leaking the contents of the canning jars into the seal.

* Keep adding boiling water as the canning jars are processing to keep the water level 2 inches above top of the canning jars.

* When the canning jars have processed, or boiled, for the recommended time, which varies depending on the contents and your altitude, turn off the heat and allow the canning jars to stand in the water for 5 minutes before removing.

* Use the canning jar lifter to remove the canning jars from the water being careful not to tip them.

* Let the canning jars stand, undisturbed for 12-24 hours until they have cooled completely.

* Check that the canning jars have sealed. Press the center of the canning jar lid, if it springs up when you release it the canning jar is NOT sealed.

* Label canning jars and store in a cool, dry place out of direct light.

Home Canning Recipes for Fruit and Berries

I make my jam with the least amount of sugar possible and all natural ingredients. The trick to good homemade jam and preserves is the consistency! Jam can be made from just about any berry including strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries or mulberries. Just choose a large stock pot, add fresh berries and enough sugar or honey to suit your taste. Then boil the berries down to thicken them. Added pectin, or commercial thickeners are NOT necessary. Most cookbooks direct you to cook the jam until it will ball on a spoon. This means the jam is ready to be canned when it is thick enough to remain heaping on a spoon, rather than running out of the spoon immediately after scooping. Some experimentation to find the thickness you and your family love when canning jams, butters and preserves my be required. I tend to leave mine runny enough to make great syrup when it's heated.

Pear Halves Canning Recipe

Have you ever wondered about the difference in various spreads? What differentiates a jam from a jelly, conserve, marmalade, etc? Find out everything you ever wanted to know about the different types of fruit spreads, "What's the Difference Between Jam and Jelly?"

Tomato recipes with peppers, garlic or onions added need vinegar, lemon or lime juice added also. If you view the chart above, you can see that peppers, garlic and onions can cause the canned tomatoes to be less acidic. I make my tomato canning recipes that include these ingredients with lemon or lime juice rather than vinegar, because I prefer the flavor.

Tomatoes Home Canning Recipe

Pickled beets are another common pickled vegetable. Much like cucumbers, beets are often ready in early June, so you can stock vegetables away in your pantry in the early summer.

Pickled Beets