Easy Canning Recipes

Why Preserve Your Own Food?

Canning is not just a fun activity you can do to help make your home more sustainable. It has some wonderful benefits including:

• It helps you to save money.
• Putting your harvest to good use.
• You can better prepare for lean times.
• It’s eco-friendly.
• It tastes great.
• You can give out canned goods to family, friends, and neighbors.
• You know exactly what you are putting into your body.

These are just some of the best reasons to preserve your own food.

With summer fast approaching, sunshine and longer days are just around the corner. This means fun times and fantastic opportunities to try out some easy canning recipes. Let’s look at a few recipes you might want to try this year.

Tomato Sauce

Canning tomato sauce is a great idea because it is so versatile. For instance, you can use it for making pizzas, pasta, meatball sandwiches, and so much more. If you are growing tomatoes, make sure to make and can a bunch of sauce. Here’s a simple recipe you are going to love.

INGREDIENTS:

• 15 lbs. ripe tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 2 teaspoons citric acid
• 8 (1-pt) canning jars, sterilized

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Core the tomatoes.
• Score the bottom of the tomatoes making an “X” with a paring knife. Just cut into the skin of the tomato, not the flesh.
• Put 5 tomatoes into a large pot of boiling water for 30 seconds.
• Remove them carefully and put them directly into a bowl of ice water, which will stop them from cooking.
• Remove the tomatoes.
• Repeat the process with the remaining tomatoes.
• Peel the skins and discard them.
• Chop the tomatoes.
• Process the tomatoes in a food processor in batches. You can process them to the desired chunkiness or smoothness of your preference.
• Place each of the batches into a large stockpot, add salt, and bring them to a boil on medium-high heat.
• Reduce heat and let them simmer until they reach the consistency you want. This will generally take a couple of hours.
• Add ¼ teaspoon of citric acid to each of the canning jars.
• Add the tomatoes to the jar leaving about half an inch of space.
• Put on the lids and then give them a water bath to seal them.

Jalapeno Jelly

Here’s another recipe to try if you want to add a little spice to your life. It can work well on sandwiches or as a dip.  See the full recipe that I use here.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 large green bell pepper
• 12 whole jalapeno peppers
• 1 ½ cups apple cider vinegar
• 1 pinch salt
• 4 ¼ cups granulated sugar
• 4 ounces of liquid pectin
• 4 jalapeno peppers that have been seeded and finely chopped
• 1 (1-pt) canning car or two 8-ounce canning jars

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Add the green bell pepper and the 12 jalapeno peppers to a food processor and blend them until they are finely chopped.
• Place the pepper mixture into a large saucepan and add the cider vinegar.
• Bring the mixture to a boil and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
• Strain the mixture through two layers of cheesecloth and then get rid of all the pulp. This should leave you with about one cup of liquid.
• Add the liquid back to the saucepan and now add the salt and the sugar, ensuring it is entirely dissolved. Bring it to a rolling boil for one minute, and then add the liquid pectin.
• You can then add the chopped, seeded, and uncooked peppers to the saucepan and then add that to the jars, leaving about a half-inch of headspace.
• Seal the jars in a hot water bath.
• When the seal has been broken, be sure to refrigerate the jelly.

Pickles

This is one of the tried-and-true summer canning favorites. Everyone loves a good dill pickle, and now you can grow your own cucumbers and make your own pickles.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 cups apple cider vinegar
• 4 cups of water
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1/3 cup canning salt (also called pickling salt)
• 3 tablespoons of pickling spices
• 8 lbs. of cucumbers between three and four inches long
• 7 dill sprigs (one for each jar)
• 7 cloves of garlic (crushed and peeled)
• 3 ½ teaspoons mustard seeds
• 3 ½ teaspoons dill seeds
• 3 ½ teaspoons red pepper flakes
• 7 (1-pt) canning jars

BRINE INSTRUCTIONS:

• Put 3 tablespoons of pickling spices into a coffee filter and tie it off.
• Add the apple cider vinegar, water, sugar, sale, and pickling spice bag (the coffee filter) into a large saucepan and bring it to a boil.
• Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
• Remove the spice bag and keep the brine warm until you are ready to can.

CUCUMBER AND CANNING INSTRUCTIONS:

• Rinse the cucumbers and make sure all spines are removed.
• Cut about an eighth of an inch from each end.
• You can opt to leave the cucumbers whole, or you could cut them into spears or slices if you prefer.
• Each of the canning jars will receive one of the dill sprigs, one clove of crushed garlic, ½ teaspoon of mustard seeds, ½ teaspoon of dill seeds, and ½ teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Add any extra spices you might like.
• Add the cucumbers to the jars vertically ensuring there is about half an inch of headspace.
• Ladle the hot brine into the jars, covering the pickles, but still ensuring there is half an inch of headspace.
• Remove bubbles, wipe the rim, add the lid, and seal the jars using a hot water bath.

Start Canning

The canning recipes above are just as easy as they are delicious. If you’re new to vegetable canning, it can certainly feel intimidating to get started. Fortunately, Stoney Creek Farm can make things a bit easier for you. If you want to learn how to can, and you live in the area around Franklin, TN, you can come to our classes. We have three in-person canning classes and they are available in May, June, and July.  Just click HERE to register!

Of course, we also know that not everyone lives in the area or may not be able to get to the in-person class. So, to make things easier for you, we also have our Canning 101 online course. 😊

We would love to hear about your easy canning recipes!  So please send your recipe to stoneycreekfarmtennessee@gmail.com and we will share it in a future blog post.