Canning Recipes

Canned French Fries

What you need:  No. 2 Russet potatoes (these are large potatoes, but not the monster size they serve at church dinners), a French fry cutter, and all the canning basics--salt, boiling water, lids, jars, etc.

Scrub the potatoes well, but don't peel.  Use the large blade (1/2"); the smaller size fries will break too easily.  

Cut the potatoes with your French fry cutter.  Follow instructions from your Ball Blue Book but reduce the initial boiling time for the potatoes from ten minutes to three minutes.  Drain the potatoes and let cool until you can handle them comfortably.  Carefully stack the potatoes on their sides in a wide mouth quart jar, add one teaspoon salt per jar, and fill to within one inch of the rim of the jar with boiling water.  Process per instructions from your Ball Blue Book and your pressure canner.

When it's lunchtime, open the jar and shake the fries out into a strainer.  Rinse and drain well to remove excess starch.  Fry in peanut oil until a golden brown.  (One more tip:  If we're in the middle of TEOTWAWKI and you are having to guess as to whether your oil is hot enough for frying yet, drop a few kernels of popcorn in the oil.  When the temperature hits 350 degrees, the popcorn will pop.)  Salt, eat, and prepare yourself to be showered with praises.

NOTE.  In canning, potatoes that will not be eaten as French fries must be peeled to remove all dirt.  Dirt is where we get botulism spores.  Botulism kills.  However, French fries will be fried at very high temperatures--350-400 degrees--for several minutes, rendering completely harmless any botulism toxin that may have developed.

Canned Hamburger

I'm not going into details about pressure canning itself here.  Detailed instructions for how to pressure can safely vary based on your altitude, your individual canner, and the quantity of food you are processing.  All of this information can be found in a Ball Blue Book of Canning or in the instructions that came with your canner.

There are a couple of different decisions to make:

1.  Hot or raw pack?  I like raw pack because it is faster and easier.  However, with raw pack there is a bit of shrinkage in the size of the patties.  Water or broth needs to be added for hot pack, but there is less shrinkage.

2.  Logs or individual patties?  Logs are raw-pack only, and they are definitely easier and faster than individual patties, but when you slice the logs the resulting patties are more likely to crumble apart.

3.  Quart or pint?  More food or less?  A log of hamburger in a pint jar will yield about six thin, slider-sized patties, while you can get eight or nine thicker, larger patties from a quart jar.

4.  Season before or after?  I add a little salt before canning, but prefer to do the bulk of the seasoning later due to salt and other food sensitivities. 

I'm a raw pack kind of person, so that takes care of the first decision.  As for the second question, I've done logs before, and they work well enough, but having pre-made patties prevents some of the crumbling.  And they just look a little nicer and less "processed."  With six to seven adults at dinner each night, the quart size is a given.

When making hamburger logs, you want to form your log so that it is one inch shorter than the height of your jar and about a quarter inch narrower than the width.  Then cut a piece of parchment that is about twelve inches long and two inches wider than your hamburger log.  Place the log in the center on one end of the parchment paper so that there is a one inch overlap on the top and bottom.  Roll the log up tightly in the parchment paper, folding in the ends as you go.  Place log in jar.

For hamburger patties, cut several squares of parchment, about 5-6" in diameter.  Place one square of parchment on the bottom of the jar and one between each patty.  Carefully pack the patties into the jar.  If you are packing them raw, do not worry that they are larger than the mouth of the jar.  They will shrink during the canning process.  If you are packing them hot, make sure they will fit in the jar.  Some people use a wide mouth canning ring to make the patties the ideal size.

You can see pictures of the raw packed hamburger patties here:  http://canningforthefuture.blogspot.com/

Process per instructions from your canning guide, 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts.


When it's time to make dinner, run the jar under hot water to soften the fat and make it easier to get your hamburgers out of the jar.  You can heat and eat as is, or you can brown them in a little butter or bacon grease and season for extra flavor.  No, it's not the same as a freshly prepared hamburger off the barbecue, but it will still be pretty wonderful.  Especially if served with French fries and freshly made hamburger buns. 

Canned Bacon
(Bacon Ends and Pieces)
I blogged in detail about canning bacon and the decisions to be made here.

Pack bacon ends and pieces into eight-ounce canning jars, allowing one inch of head space.  Lay partially browned bacon strips on parchment paper and roll up and place in wide-mouth pint jar or quart jar.  Do not add salt or any liquid.  Wipe rims and threads of jars very carefully with paper towels and vinegar to remove any grease.  Process pints for 75 minutes and quarts for 90 minutes.

Canned Chicken
Raw pack:  Canning raw chicken is almost brainless.  Fill jars loosely with raw meat pieces "in suitable sizes for canning."  I aim for 1/2-inch to 1-inch cubes.  Allow 1-1/4" (chicken is one of the extremely few recipes I've seen that requires 1 1/4" of headspace) headspace.  Add salt, if desired, 1 teaspoon per quart, 1/2 teaspoon per pint.  Do not add any liquid.

Hot pack:  Boil, steam, or bake chicken until it is about 2/3 cooked.  Fill jars with pieces and hot broth.  Allow 1-1/4" headspace.  Add salt, if desired, 1 teaspoon per quart, 1/2 teaspoon per pint. 

To process the jars, follow the directions that came with your pressure canner, but in general, it's 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts.

Canned Pork
Cut raw pork into one-inch cubes.  Try to remove as much fat as possible to reduce chances of seal failure.  Pack into canning jars.

Fill jars to one inch below the rim and add salt--one teaspoon per quart, one-half teaspoon per pint.  Do not add any liquid.  Liquid is never added when canning raw meats.  The meat produces its own juice.  Wipe rims very carefully with vinegar.  Most say to just use hot water, but when dealing with foods that may have fat on them, vinegar will cut that fat and make for a better seal.  Put on lids and bands and process per instructions for your particular canner and your altitude and jar size.  Typically pints are processed for 75 minutes and quarts for 90 minutes.