What’s worth canning?

Watermelon Samurai - April 15, 2022

AdviceSkills

I’d like to ask a question (ok, 2 questions) to the folks who are experienced with canning fruits and veggies:1) What fruits & vegetables do you prefer to can and what do you prefer to freeze? (Set aside the issue of the power going out and the freezer defrosting…)2) What fruits & vegetables have you canned that you won’t can again – because of the effort involved, change in color/texture, shift in taste, equipment needed, etc.

Thanks in advance!

-WS (a canning newbie)

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I tend to prioritize canning protein (meat), and tomatoes, and “meals in a jar” type things (stew, spaghetti sauce).  I dehydrate more veggies than I can, but there’s a learning curve when it comes to using dehydrated veggies.  My story may change when this year’s garden comes in!  Otherwise, I would prioritize those veggies that are of the highest value on your menu, and those that “can well”, like corn, potatoes, green beans and beets.  I think frozen spinach would be better than canned spinach, and I’d say the same for frozen peas.  Some veggies turn to mush in the freezer.  Experience will tell you which veggies you feel are worth the effort.  Enjoy your new experience!

 

Yeah, it’s the mushy ones I’d like to avoid, so I will DEFINITELY avoid the peas. (That’s giving me grade school cafeteria flashbacks.)

What kind of climate do you live in? I’ve avoided dehydrating because I live in a hot & humid place, so I’ve questioned how successful dehydrating would actually be…

 

That’s a good question. I haven’t done any canning, so can’t give you much advice from personal experience, but will share what I’ve heard.

*Freezing is easier. Stick it in a bag and in the freezer it goes. 

*Canning with high heat will take away some nutrients.

*Freezing food can bring with it that freezer burn taste

 

For fruit & veggies, I find freezing to be the preferred method.  First of all canning takes a good bit of knowhow to keep from killing yourself, takes a lot of time… and the food is of lesser taste, texture and quality.  To freeze veggies, requires just a pot of boiling water & some freezer bags.  Requires freezer space of course.  We blanch for a couple of minutes, cool them down in an ice or cold water bath, and put in the freezer.  We make sure we use everything within a year.  Out of the freezer, you would be hard pressed to know the difference between frozen veggies and ones fresh from the garden.  

Nowadays about the only thing we can are our jams, jellies and applesauce.  

I have both water bath canned and pressure canned.  They certainly have their place when you are talking extended storage time and no need for electricity.  In a crisis, they are a valuable tool in preserving food.  But day to day, I’ll take fresh frozen fruits & veggies any day of the week.

Just my opinion.

 

Thank you. It’s very intriguing to hear that blanched and frozen veggies taste like fresh. I’ll have to give that a shot…

-WS

 

Tomatoes, just tomatoes.  In my opinion the flavor is much better when they are canned rather than frozen, and I also like the convenience of being able to grab and use a jar instantly, rather than plan ahead and defrost them hours in advance. 

Everything else I would freeze exclusively, if freezer space and power outages were not concerns.  Some foods are as good or better frozen, and others are negligibly worse, but not enough so to make it worth the extra work involved in canning.

 

Another vote in favor of freezing – you’re saving me lots of work!

-WS

 

Thank you everyone – I greatly appreciate the shared wisdom!

 

What are your thoughts on how you will proceed after hearing everyone’s suggestions? 

 

I’ve previously canned peaches, and those turned out fine – much better than I expected actually. So that gave me the confidence to try something else. However, remembering back to what my mother & grandmother did, I only recall them canning tomatoes (as sauce), berries (as jams) and peaches (whole). Everything else that came out of the garden they would freeze (including tomato sauce when we ran out of jars). But they never canned meat. So that’s what prompted me to ask the question.

It seems the advice here is largely echoing what my family did: freeze the veggies and can the fruit. It also sounds like freezing is a suitable alternative to pressure canning for meat & low acid veggies, and I can save the expense of a pressure canner for now. So that will be the plan, emphasizing the veggies.

I am intrigued by the idea of dehydrating, so maybe I’ll give that a shot at some point. I am also currently attempting to cure a small pork loin, and hopefully that experiment goes well and I live to tell about it…

-WS

 

Alisa Felix made a good forum post about dehydrating. You should hit up her or the others in that discussion if you have any questions about it.

I’ve only seen my grandparents can fruits and jams also. We buy so many frozen fruits from the grocery store that I imagine those would freeze well. And my grandma would make “freezer jam” which used less sugar or something than the process of canning it. Looks like you could go either way and can or freeze.

Canning is nice though to have a shelf stable product if there was a power outage to your freezer.

 

Good question! I’ve done a lot of canning, and mostly don’t now, aside from jams & jellies, as I’m not crazy about the texture and nutrient changes. Meat is mostly nice canned, but has long pressure canning times. I’d like to can my favorite garden spaghetti sauce, but haven’t yet, as it keeps beautifully in the freezer in wide mouth pint canning jars. Have eaten jars that languished in there for over 4 years & still tasted garden fresh.

That’s my best tip, really, that any soup, stew, cooked beans, cut up boneless meat or burger, & most cut up veggies, fruit, all keep extremely well in a wide mouth canning jar in the freezer with some liquid to reduce airspace. It’s much more resistant to freezer burn than other methods, and as long as you leave good headspace (don’t fill past the lid ring, or even go lower in a quart for expansion) and screw lid on gently, not tight, no problem. I’ve never had a jar break. I do lemon juice, as well, with excellent results. No garbage too, as they’re indefinitely reusable, even the lids, as they don’t touch the food. 

 

We’ll frequently make big batches of chicken soup and chili so that we can freeze a portion of it for a rainy day. But we always freeze it in plastic containers. It never occurred to me that glass would work well – good to know you’ve been very successful with it. Also, your comment about using liquid to avoid freezer burn is a really good point!

– WS

 

I live at a high altitude, which means I have to add a chunk of extra processing time. Due to the extra time, tender foods – like peaches, citrus segments don’t do well (turning into mush).

I tend to stick to jams and jellies, fruit sauces (like apple butter, applesauce, duck sauce, homemade marinades). I also like pickled vegetables – cucumbers, beets, jalapeños, and summer squash all do well. Sweet pickle relish is amazing homemade and worth your time (despite the chopping). Salsas and chutneys do well. I also can tomatoes, mostly as sauce.

I blanch and freeze greens. I freeze premade apple pie filling (which you may also can, but the texture is better frozen imo). I will freeze any vegetables that would need to be pressure canned due to it’s acidity.

Welcome to canning! It’s addictive! I dehydrate a lot too – also addictive.

 

Sorry for the dumb question, but do the pickled things you mention stay crisp after being boiled in the canning jars?

-WS

 

Not a dumb question!

I think they stay fairly crisp – not snap, refrigerator pickle crisp, but a firm texture. Pickle relish stays crunchy. I think the pickling solution must have something to do with it along with the quicker processing times. I have to process an additional 10 minutes so ymmv and you may get really crisp pickles. 

I made chow-chow relish once and the cabbage in that went to mush – so not every relish has turned out perfect.

You can always try fermenting vegetables too, I’ll keep sauerkraut in my fridge months and months after I ferment it. It’s an easy, rewarding one to start with. 

 

Oh and I use Pickle Crisp – I think Ball makes it. 

 

My mother has been canning fruits and vegetables. Almost all of them taste well, but I don’t recommend you to can grapes.

 

Agreed. I prefer my grapes crushed, fermented and bottled. 🙂

 

Canning anything that you can come by cheaper than buying ready-made is really the ideal. Back when I was a kid in California Central Valley we’d get big lugs of any fruit you could imagine and my mom and grandmom would put up lots.

But then all the fruit was replaced by almonds and “fresh” fruit was flown in from wherever 12 months of the year. There used to be lots of tomatoes here in the Ozarks back when, little canneries everywhere so I’ve heard. Nothing really now. There are some U-Pick farms but they aren’t any great deals.

Unless you are just doing it for fun canning turns into work. Preserving is a great skill to have if you also grow. In a long emergency it is a must. I’d recommend building skills and equipment on tasty stuff. 

I love homemade bread and butter pickles! Chow-Chow (relish), any kind of fruit preserves, jelly, jam; canned potatoes and stew are great prep items.

 

I’d love to say that I have a beautiful garden that produces a bountiful harvest, but I would be a liar. I’m so incompetent with plants that I could kill a plastic cactus. However, we now have a nearby farmer’s store that sells only locally grown produce and meat at reasonable prices – so I can use that as my “garden”: buying what’s in season and preserving it via freezing, canning & curing.

 

I can 200-300 lbs of Roma tomatoes into sauces every Labor Day (if I have help then I get the higher amount). I have enough to use myself throughout the year and give jars away to family and friends.

I also can later summer peaches, also pears, strawberries, and apples when they are in season. Strawberries generally become jam and apples become apple butter. I can peaches and pears as peeled and halved, in light syrup with a tablespoon of liqueur in each quart jar (usually Cointreau).

Except for the tomato sauce canningpalooza, I generally do small-batch canning, sometimes as few as 3-4 jars. I make salsa and pickles more often as small batch projects.

I don’t have a pressure canner so my projects all involve water bath canning and that limits what I can process.

I dehydrate other veggies and fruit. I don’t freeze much. If I do freeze, it’s for very short term (week or two).