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Around the fall of 2022, I started getting recommended canning videos on YouTube and saw people that were using electric pressure canners. After doing a bunch of research, I bought the Nesco Smart Canner in January 2023, and I have been very happy with it. I think it is less intimidating to start pressure canning with the electric canner, and since this one also doubles as a pressure cooker, I’ve gotten a ton of use out of it in the last year.
I downloaded the canning guidelines from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, which is a free PDF on their website. This includes overall canning guidelines as well as tested recipes for canning different foods. It is important to me to follow tested recipes from these guidelines or reputable books to make sure that I am canning safely.
I also checked out as many canning books as I could from my local library, which was a great way to try out different books and see which ones had recipes that I was interested in. A few that I ended up buying myself or asking for as gifts since they had recipes I like using in them are:
- Preserving by the Pint
- Foolproof Preserving by America’s Test Kitchen
- The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving
- Modern Pressure Canning Ball Blue Book (2020 edition)
I have a notebook that I use as a canning journal, and I also take notes on other recipes in it. It has a pocket in the front, and I keep my canner manual in it. There are a lot of steps that are different for pressure canning vs water bath canning, and it can get confusing, so I refer back to the manual often to make sure I am following the correct steps. In my canning journal, I take notes on what I’m canning, the recipe I followed, the ingredients I used, the yield I got, and anything else that I want to remember from a canning session.
For canning tools, I got this Ball 3-piece set that has a canning funnel, a de-bubbler that also measures headspace, and a jar lifter. I also find that a slotted spoon and a ladle are very useful for filling jars. Some other things I’ve found helpful are this jar opener, a mesh steamer basket for blanching veggies, and a large 12 quart stock pot.
For canning lids, I started out using the ones that came with my canning jars, but now that I’ve used those up, I have started switching over to ForJars lids after seeing other YouTubers use them, and I do think they have a better seal rate, but I also stopped putting my new lids in the dishwasher before using them, so that could also be a factor – now I just handwash before using.
For canning jars, I mainly use quarts, pints, and 8 ounce jars. I prefer the wide mouth in quarts and pints, and regular mouth quarts are too tall to fit in the Nesco Smart Canner anyway. I bought 2 cases each of the quarts and 8 oz jars, and 3 cases of the pints over the course of a few months as I figured out which ones I used the most, and this seems to be a good amount for me for now. I also like having these leak-proof lids to use for storage, like the jar of strawberry jam that is currently in my fridge.
Another thing to mention is that the canning process takes quite a bit of time, so I have to plan ahead when I want to do a canning project. If I’m canning beans, I need to start soaking them the day before, and depending on the project it can take a few hours (or even all day for something like baked beans) to prepare the ingredients to fill the jars, process them in the canner, and wait for the canner to cool down enough to remove the jars. I typically plan these projects for a weekend day, and make sure I have all of the ingredients ready to go for that day.
What did I can in 2023?
So now let’s get into what I actually canned in 2023. I saved all of the lids from jars I opened throughout the year, so I was able to count them up. These counts don’t include the jars that failed to seal since I didn’t label those lids. I canned 20 different items throughout the year.
By far, the thing I canned the most this year was chickpeas, with 31 total jars, and I restocked these toward the end of the year so I still have 8 of those jars on my pantry shelf. These always turn out great for me and I like using the aquafaba (or liquid from the jar) for vegan recipes, so this is something that I will continue to can a lot of. I canned 13 jars of black beans, and again this is something that I will continue to can. And then I canned baked beans a couple of different ways, and I really like the recipe that I shared. It took me an entire day to can them, so it’s probably not something that I will do very often, but I will make them again. The 2 cans of navy beans were extra beans from a different baked bean recipe that I didn’t make enough sauce for, so I’m not planning to can plain navy beans again in the future.
Potatoes were one of the things that made me want to start canning since I don’t have a good way to store fresh potatoes, and so I did end up canning a lot of them – 19 quarts. I’ve canned both Yukon golds and red potatoes and I much prefer the red potatoes, so that is what I’ll continue to can in the future. I haven’t heard great things about canned russet potatoes, so I didn’t try those, but let me know if you have and how they turned out! I did a few cans of vegan cheeze starter, which is just potatoes and carrots, and that was nice to have, and I used up all of those jars, so I will do that again this year, probably in the one-cup size, since that was the right amount for things like a pot of macaroni and cheeze. I canned 8 quarts of butternut squash which I really enjoy and will continue to can. And then for soups, I canned 6 quarts of corn chowder starter, and 8 quarts of chili, both of which I will continue to can.
I canned some homemade apple cider which I made from figi apples. It turned out really good, but it took quite a bit of time and I’m not sure it’s worth making over just buying apple cider. I made the grape drink to use up some grapes before going out of town and this was a fail for me – it’s too sweet for the amount of grape flavor, so it wasn’t very good diluted more or added to sparkling water. I still have one jar left, so let me know if you have any ideas for how to use it up! The cranberry juice is great – I made that when I bought too many cranberries for the sauce, and it was pretty easy, so I might make that again. I really like the homemade cranberry sauce, so I will definitely continue to can that in the future. The pear caramel is a big hit and I will for sure be making that again. And I do enjoy the strawberry jam, but I am going to tweak the process next time I make it since I ended up with apple chunks in this batch.
I really enjoy the red onion relish and am planning to make more of that soon. The pickle relish is good but I haven’t been going through it very fast, so I might need to go down to 4oz jars for that in the future. The bread and butter pickles are very good and I’m down to my last jar, so I’ll be making those again soon.
I wasn’t planning on canning tomatoes, but my mom gave me a bunch of extra tomatoes from her garden, so I ended up doing crushed tomatoes and some roasted marinara sauce. The crushed tomatoes seemed like the easiest way to can tomatoes without a food mill, so that is what I did first, and I’ve only used one jar so far. The roasted marinara sauce was more of a process and very messy, but it turned out really well, so that is probably what I will do with tomatoes in the future. It would definitely be easier with a food mill so I may consider getting one in the future if I have space to store it.
So that is everything I canned in my first year of canning! I have really enjoyed learning this process and sharing it with all of you. Stay tuned for more canning posts this year!
Plantcrafted Pantry 