Plain cabbage should not be packed into jars and canned as a vegetable. The National Center for Home Food Preservation and Cooperative Extension services do not have a tested process for it, and they advise against using cabbage in pressure-canned…
Canning squash is possible, but only in a narrow set of conditions. Winter squash and pie pumpkins can be pressure canned as 1-inch cubes packed in liquid. Plain summer squash (zucchini, yellow squash) cannot. Squash puree, mashed squash, pumpkin butter,…
A shelf-stable jalapeño hot sauce has to be an acidified, tested recipe processed in a boiling-water canner. Fresh jalapeños are a low-acid vegetable. Boiling them and sealing the jars is not enough to stop Clostridium botulinum. The National Center for…
Green beans are a low-acid vegetable. That means they cannot be made shelf-stable in a boiling-water bath, no matter how long you boil the jars. The only research-tested method for plain canned green beans is pressure canning at a high…
Pressure canning recipes exist for one reason: low-acid foods cannot be made shelf-stable in a boiling-water bath. Vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood, beans, stock, and most soups need 240°F to 250°F so Clostridium botulinum spores cannot survive and later produce toxin…
Canning spicy pickles is a water-bath project, not a pressure-canning project. Vinegar-acidified cucumbers stay safe on the shelf because the finished product stays at or below pH 4.6, which prevents Clostridium botulinum from producing toxin. The heat is the easy…
You cannot safely home-can finished sausage gravy. Cooperative Extension specialists and the National Center for Home Food Preservation treat milk, cream, flour, and other thickeners as ingredients that do not belong in home-canned jars. Commercial sausage gravy exists because factories…
Plain sugar-and-water syrup can be stored for months, but canning it is not the same job as packing fruit in syrup. The National Center for Home Food Preservation publishes tested ratios for syrup used around fruit, and a tested boiling-water…
Canning pork is a pressure-canning job, not a water-bath project. Pork is a low-acid meat, so boiling water never reaches the temperature needed to destroy Clostridium botulinum spores. A pressure canner is what brings the jars to the 240°F range…
Canning strawberry pie filling gives you a shelf-stable quart of sweet, thickened berries that can go straight into a crust. The version that belongs on a pantry shelf uses cook-type Clear Jel, bottled lemon juice, and a full boiling-water process.…