My 2025 Canning Journal
19. November 2025This year I branched out to pressure canned foods more than I ever have in the past. I wanted to stock my pantry shelves with plenty of meals in jars, the “original” fast food! And boy did I! My shelves are filled with meats and vegetables more so than fruit. Now I have plenty of meals to share with my elderly parents so they can have an easy dinner in the winter. These meals will also make for fast meals during busy workdays.
I have a number of canning books on my shelves. So I’ll note below which books I referenced for some of the recipes.
Pressure Canned Soup
Soup is a fantastic staple to have in your pantry for hearty winter meals. I put up four different soups. Most were made with vegetables from my own garden.
Zuppa Toscana Soup
I canned a batch of Zuppa Toscana soup and had a heck of a time picking out which canning recipe to go with. This is the famed “Olive Garden” knockoff soup. I had 4 canning recipes in books to choose from. While all claimed to taste like the restaurant’s soup, they all had different ingredients. Some had onion and garlic while others didn’t. Some included bacon AND sausage, while others only had sausage. One was a cold pack recipe but the rest were hot pack. But the most confusing part was the processing time. Two recipes had a processing time of 75 minutes for quarts and the other two had 90 min even though all had meat.
After scrutinizing which recipe to go with, I realized I hadn’t even eaten at Olive Garden in 15 years and wouldn’t remember what their soup tasted like anyway. I picked one, modified it to remove some of the meat, and I processed quarts for 90 minutes. The recipe has potatoes, kale, sausage, bacon, onions, and garlic. Just add a little cream and parmesan cheese to serve.
The recipe I used is from the book Meals in a Jar from the Canning Diva.
Vegetable Soup
I put up 8 pint jars of home canned Garden Vegetable Soup. My garden provided all the tomatoes, potatoes, and green beans. The recipe called for corn, which my husband can’t eat. So I added more veggies to offset the missing corn. I’ll add some frozen corn to my own bowl after opening… if I ever eat a jar of this soup at all. Veggie soup is so not my thing. But my husband really enjoys this chunky soup.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
Taco Soup
I preserved 7 pints of this amazing Taco Soup. All tomatoes were from my garden. The black turtle beans were harvested from my garden way back in 2019. The original recipe called for corn, which my husband can’t eat. Normally I would add an additional vegetable as a substitute, but I didn’t do that for this recipe. In additional to adding corn to my opened jars, I add cheddar cheese (and lots of it). Then once the soup is heated, I top with a glob of sour cream and sometimes avocado. This soup is fairly meaty and thick. I wish I would’ve made a full batch and used quart jars. But I like to test small batches of recipes to make sure I like them before going canning crazy.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
My Chili is decorated with our custom Harvest canning labels. These come in 5 colors and can be custom printed for any food you put up.
Chili Con Carne
I preserved 3 quarts of chili. Several of my books had recipes for this famed chili. Some called for beans and others didn’t. I definitely wanted beans in my chili, but most definitely NOT the kidney beans that some recipes used. I chose pinto beans instead which probably reduced my yield compared to using larger kidney beans. I buy dried beans in bulk (Affiliate link) from Azure Standard. I can get organic beans for much less than canned beans.
This chili was super thick and meaty. I don’t normally use a lot of meat in my chili (the recipe called for 2 pounds). So I think for every quart of this chili, I may add a quart of plain diced tomatoes to dilute it. All tomatoes were from my summer garden. Everyone’s chili recipe is so different! Mine is more like chunky tomato soup with just a touch of meat.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
Bone Broth
I’ve been making my own chicken bone broth for many years now. Read how I make My bone broth recipe in a slow cooker for 24 hours. In the past, I would freeze my broth in Souper Cubes or containers. I was convinced with my research that freezing would best maintain this super food’s health properties. I mean, what would be the point of making this delicious, gelatinous broth if I destroyed all the nutrients by canning it? Granted, it would still make a tasty broth for soup. But I make bone broth for all the amazing health benefits.
Well, I decided to can my bone broth for the first time this year. The final broth appears to maintain that well known healthy “jiggle” from all the gelatin. It certainly didn’t appear that way at first though. The final shelf-stable broth is very liquidy. But if put an opened jar into my fridge, it goes back to the original gelatinous form. YAY! So now I plan to can my broth in the future to save freezer space.
Meals in Jars
I really like the idea of having a complete meal in one jar. But opening up three separate jars for one meal is just as lovely. I’ve canned a lot of pork and beef this year. Even though my husband and I predominately eat chicken, I have only canned one chicken dish ever. I need to put up more chicken next year!
My husband does all of the grocery shopping, so whenever he sees meat on sale, he calls me. I have a spreadsheet of all the canning recipes I make or want to try with the type of meat and amount needed. Does this make me really dorky or really prepared? LOL, probably both. So I check my spreadsheet and tell hubby how much sale meat to get so I can preserve a new recipe.
Pork is on sale more often than beef. And it’s usually pretty inexpensive as well. We often find pork chops for 50% off. So any final preserved jar of food ends up being cheaper than fast food. And of course it’s much better tasting!
My beef pot pie filling is decorated with our custom Modern Black & White rectangle canning labels.
Beef Pot Pie Filling
When I was a kid, I used to LOVE the frozen pot pies from the grocery store. And not to date myself, but the first pot pies I ate were still sold in the metal pans that you baked in the oven. I’m pretty sure most of the frozen pies are in microwaveable paper these days. As tasty as they were back then, I realize how terribly unhealthy some of them are. They are really salty, more than I can stomach now. And I’m sure there may be other questionable ingredients used as well.
So I canned this hearty beef pot pie filling using the potatoes, peas, and thyme from my own garden. The filling also has carrots, onions, beef and homemade beef broth. The thickening happens after you open a jar. Then it’s baked in a crust, baked with raw biscuit dough on top, or simply served over warm rolls. I made a homemade crust for my first pot pie and it was pretty tasty. It does not however look very good. My husband cannot eat butter or gluten, so pie crusts are a tricky thing to make under those restrictions! But something doesn’t need to be pretty to be delicious.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
My Honey Garlic Pork Chops are decorated with our Custom Picnic canning labels. They come in 5 different colors and print with your custom text.
Honey-Garlic Pork Chops
To date, this is my favorite pork canning recipe. I use widemouth pint jars so my husband and I can have single serving dinners. But there’s only so many pork chops you can fit into a pint jar! This recipe calls for 6 pounds of pork chops. But I can usually only fit around 5 pounds per batch to maintain the correct headspace. Each jar is packed with lightly seared pork and onions. Then it’s topped off with a honey garlic broth.
The first time I canned this, I “rolled” 3 chops into each jar. Once opened, the pork was still in the roll, and unrolling it cracked the meat up into pieces. No worries, as it still tasted great. On another batch, I cut and stacked the pork pieces. I was able to get more in each jar with that method. I cut and pack the pork differently based on how thick the meat is.
To serve, I drain the broth into a skillet and thicken with a flour slurry to make gravy. Then I carefully remove and add the chops to the gravy and heat until bubbly. These are great served over mashed potatoes.
These pint jars cost about $2 each since I got pork chops on sale 50% off. The last sale had 2 lbs of chops with 10 chops per pack for $5. So my husband loaded up on chops! We share one pint for dinner and sometimes have a little leftover for lunch. So that’s a pretty inexpensive meal for 2.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
Pineapple Pork Chops
The original recipe only called for pineapple juice, but I figured why not put some fruit chunks in too? Well, I’ll tell you why not… they get a bit tasteless and brownish, LOL. So I will just add my own canned pineapple to each open jar of chops in the future. I altered the original recipe’s seasonings. It called for cayenne pepper which I omitted because I do NOT do spicy! I reduced the garlic powder and omitted the black pepper as well. The end result was slightly bland which is totally on me for changing the spices. I felt like the broth could’ve been sweeter.
I serve these chops over rice with gravy thickened with arrowroot. They would be good on noodles too. Each pint averaged $2 per jar with sale pork and yielded three plates of food.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
Pulled BBQ Pork
I used pork loin and followed the recipe from Melissa K. Norris’ Everything Worth Preserving. This is originally based on a Ball recipe, but the difference is with the sweetener. This recipe uses Sucanat®, while others will use raw sugar or brown sugar. With more raw sweeteners, you will get a more molasses type flavor. This is a hot pack recipe that calls for the pork to be partially cooked before filling the jars. It smells amazing as it cooks!
To serve, empty a jar into a skillet and shred with 2 forks. Then heat until the juices evaporate some to your liking. The pork is tender and moist. It tastes great topped with bread and butter pickles.
I got the pork on sale, so each pint jar cost about $2.15. We got three sandwiches worth of meat per jar. But if you make a bigger sammie, a pint may only serve 2 people.
My Beef Stroganoff is decorated with our custom Harvest canning labels. These come in 5 colors and can be custom printed for any food .
Beef Stroganoff
I canned beef stroganoff for the first this year. It may be one of the tastiest jar meals I’ve ever canned. The meat was on sale, so this averaged $4.75 per pint jar. I thought my husband and I would share a jar for dinner… but once paired with noodles, we actually got 4 meals out of one pint. I’m not great at math, but I think that’s much cheaper than McNuggets, right? And much tastier.
To serve, empty the liquid from the jar into a skillet. Add a flour slurry to thicken into gravy. Add the meat and cook until hot, bubbly, and thickened. The final step is stirring in the sour cream. I added a few tablespoons of gloop which felt sufficient. This jar meal makes a great deal of gravy. I served on spiral noodles, but it would be tasty on mashed potatoes too.
Recipe is from the New and Updated Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. You can read my review about this this book.
Eye of Round Steak with Onion Gravy
This cut of meat is fairly affordable, but not as flavorful as other choices. But once pressure canned, the meat is really tender. I lightly seared each steak and packed with beef broth, onions, and mushrooms. The original recipe didn’t call for mushrooms, but I had some leftover from when I canned beef stroganoff.
The meat was on sale, so each pint was $4.75. Each jar has 2 thicker pieces of meat, so this is one meal for my husband and myself. The jar yields quite a bit of gravy, and of course is tasty with mashed potatoes.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
Beef Tips in Gravy
I canned 4 quarts of chuck roast with onions, mushrooms, and broth. The original recipe called for stew meat, but chuck roast was on sale. The regular price for all the beef was $50! But on sale it was $30. The mushrooms were on sale too, woot! So each quart was roughly $8.40. I haven’t eaten this yet, but I’m sure it will taste great. I did have some syphoning, so I may need to add more broth or water when I make the gravy.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
Beef Pot Roast
This is a pretty simple recipe to stock your pantry with for a fast dinner. You raw pack and layer the meat, carrots, potatoes, onion, then add broth. I used dried rosemary and thyme from my garden. Some recipes call for wine and garlic, which I don’t add. The meat turns out incredibly moist, almost like that from a crock pot.
I got beef chuck on sale, so each quart was about $6. I used potatoes from my own garden. And I would’ve used my own carrots if it weren’t for those pesky rabbits, oh well. Each jar made a ton of gravy and yielded 2 meals for 2 people.
I adapted the recipe from the New and Updated Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. You can read my review about this this book.
Beef Street Tacos
The original recipe says you can use flank steak, brisket, or chuck roast. I found beef roast on sale for around $20 (regular price $32). So each pint jar was roughly $5. The final meat is shredded with 2 forks and heated in a skillet until juices are evaporated to your liking. We eat this over rice and beans and sometimes in tortillas.
The recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
Bourbon Chicken with Azure Standard canning jars (Affiliate link)
The super stylish canning jars are from Azure Standard (Affiliate links). You can buy them with lids and bands or just mason jars only. They come in regular, wide mouth, pints through gallon sizes. Azure Standard is a healthy living food company and sustainable regenerative farm and orchard in Oregon. They offer organic food, produce, and bulk dry goods like oats, flour, sugar, and other pantry staples. You can buy staples in 25-50 lb bags or 20 lb boxes of organic fruit for canning. They support other independent and family-owned companies with similar values as well. You order online and pick your food up right off their semi truck once a month. Read more about Azure “Drops” work.
Bourbon Chicken
Despite the name, this chicken does NOT have booze in it. It just gets that name from Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It’s a raw cold pack recipe with chicken breast, garlic, OJ, ketchup, brown sugar, ACV, and soy sauce (I used coconut amigos instead). After opening, you can thicken the liquid and serve over rice for a quick meal.
The chicken was on sale, so each pint cost about $2.60 and was a meal for my husband and myself. Each jar makes quite a bit of gravy too. While I served it over rice, I think it would be just as good with mashed potatoes or noodles.
Recipe is from Sarah Thrush’s Preserving with a Purpose.
Pork Fajitas
For this recipe, I used pork loin, pinto beans, peppers, onions, tomatoes, chicken broth, and seasonings. It’s a raw pack recipe where you layer the ingredients and cover with broth. It’s faster if you line your ingredients and jars up like an assembly line. After each layer, you firmly pack the ingredients down. Handy Tip: Attach a metal spice lid to the end of your magnetic canning lid wand. Then use the lid to pack down the ingredients. If you use widemouth jars, you may be able to get your fingers down in the jar to tamp everything down. If you have giant man hands, good luck. Widemouth jars really work best with this recipe, but I had to use a few regular mouth jars too.
The only change I did to the original recipe was to soak the beans so they can be “degassed” some ;) The recipe calls for dried beans that are not rehydrated first. That isn’t a “standard approved method” in canning, but apparently some canners have success with this method. The meat may be the most tender that I’ve ever had. My only regret is that I didn’t can in quarts instead. But whenever I try new recipes, I often use pints and sometimes even do a half batch just to make sure I like the recipe.
The pork was on sale and it ended up being about 80 cents worth of meat in each jar! Woot! I didn’t do the math on the total jar cost, but it’s pretty inexpensive, way less than a fast food meal (and much better). Next time I can these I will try steak… which will increase the cost of course.
To serve, just heat the contents in a skillet until the juices are evaporated to your liking. Add to tortillas or tacos with rice, lettuce, sour cream, cheese, guac, etc!
This recipe is from the book Meals in a Jar from the Canning Diva.
Vegetables
It’s great to have simple vegetables as side dishes for any meal. But canned veggies can also be used as added ingredients for soups, stews, or casseroles. So I try to have a few basics on hand.
Great Beans, 2 Ways
I bought a bushel of stringless green beans from a local farm to put up. In my head, I couldn’t quite envision what a bushel of green beans looked like. Now I know. It’s a lot. And it was quite a hefty treasure chest of produce…. 28 pounds of beans! After 3 days of canning, I got a total of 19 quarts, 6 pints, and a gallon of frozen beans to use for future recipes. There were still beans left, so I ended up on my neighbor’s porch begging him to take the leftovers (he gladly obliged, no begging was needed :)
My green beans are decorated with our custom Patriotic Quilt canning labels.
My marathon weekend canning a bushel of beans yielded 2 types of canned goods. Regular beans with salt and “Country” Beans. The regular beans were hot packed in water. The Country Beans were raw packed with homemade pork broth, salt, garlic and onion powder. You can tell which jars are which by the slight cloudiness of spices in the bottom of the jar.
The Country Beans recipe I used was from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. You can read my review about this this book.
My herbed potatoes are decorated with our custom Color Foodie's Canning Labels. They come in 9 color options and print with your text for whatever food you put up.
Herbed Potatoes
I’m not sure why I would can potatoes on their own. But this Ball recipe looked pretty good and many canners raved about it. I switched up the seasonings and used rosemary, thyme, and onion powder. This raw pack recipe gets topped off with chicken broth. It’s a simple ready-made side dish for when you don’t feel like peeling and cooking spuds!
Recipe is from the New and Updated Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. You can read my review about this this book.
Pressure Canned Tomatoes
Ok, tomatoes are a fruit, but I’m still listing this under veggies since I pressure canned them. And WHY would I pressure can tomatoes? I thought I’d give it a try since the processing time is much less than waterbath or steam canning. But while the processing time is less, you still have the time for venting and cooling down with pressure canning. So is it really a time saver?
Alas, my first time pressure canning diced tomatoes was not great. I had a lot of syphoning. Way more than I’ve ever had with steam canning. I was left with 2 inches of headspace, yikes! I have the most success with hot packing tomatoes and using a steam canner. I doubt I will try pressure canning tomatoes again. I managed to can 17 quarts of diced tomatoes this year even though the varmints were very destructive in my garden.
Pizza Sauce
I’ve made pizza sauce a few times in the past. I’ve finally realized it’s best canned in half pints. Each half pint makes one pizza. If I can in pints, I have a bit of sauce leftover. And since I don’t bake pizza very often, I will use the leftover sauce on top of burgers with provolone cheese. So it all works out as nothing ever goes to waste, not even one tablespoon of sauce. And yes, those are tomato seeds that you see in the jars! I don’t even recall the last time I removed seeds for my tomato canned goods. They don’t bother me one bit.
Brushetta
The bruschetta I made was originally based on a Ball recipe. I adjusted the seasonings to my taste. You can get my adapted Bruschetta recipe on our blog. One of my new favorite ways to eat bruschetta is in pasta salad. Yep, just dump a full jar of these tasty herbed tomatoes right into the whole bowl of pasta salad. Just drizzle in a little olive oil and it really kicks it up a notch!
My Dad's 100% tomato juice is decorated with our custom Market Blend canning labels. They come in 6 color options and print with your own text.
Tomato Juice
Last year I canned V-8 style tomato juice for my dad. It was 95% tomatoes with carrots, celery, and green pepper. He did not like it because it had the other veggies in it. I said “But Dad, it’s just 5% other veggies.” And he said “Yeah, it’s the 5% that’s the problem.” So this year he got all tomatoes with just a dash of salt. So simple. So boring. But still good. And I did actually remove the seeds for my Dad because I’m a good daughter :D
Tomato recipes are from the New and Updated Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. You can read my review about this this book.
Dried Beans
The first time I canned dried beans, the jars didn’t turn out so great! I did the overnight soak method (then drained, rinsed, and boiled 30 minutes before canning the next day). So the beans are only partially cooked when put in the jars. BUT I packed the jars tight with beans to 1” headspace, then added water. And I literally had a solid packed jar of beans that I needed pry out of the jar! Because the beans soak up water as they finish cooking, duh! :D
I have since learned to pack the jars 3/4 full of beans, then add water to fill the 1” headspace. The end result is much better this way. I soak overnight to help get rid of some of the bean’s “gas” causing enzymes so my husband doesn’t fart his way across state lines! I know some people just can dry beans without soaking and precooking. That isn’t an “approved” way to do it. I would worry about beans not fully cooking this way, although I know some do it with no issues. But how is their gas???
Why can beans? Why not? I buy dried beans in bulk (Affiliate links) from Azure Standard. I can get organic beans for much less than canned beans.
Fruit
I barely canned any fruit this year. Normally I get bushels of apples, pears, or peaches to put up. But I still had enough on the pantry shelves from last year. So the only fruit I canned was rhubarb from my neighbor and cranberry sauce.
Rhubarb BBQ Sauce
My husband and I almost never eat barbecued meat. Most BBQ sauce is tomato based. When I saw this rhubarb BBQ sauce, I thought I’d give it a try. In the past, I would only use my neighbor’s rhubarb for fruit butter. But since I had a half dozen jars of butter left from last year, I looked for a new way to can rhubarb.
I adapted this Rhubarb BBQ Sauce recipe for our blog. It’s really tasty on baked chicken. The broth from the chicken is a little sweet. I use the leftover broth when I make quinoa.
Peach Pie Rhubarb Jam
This was a low sugar pectin recipe I tried. I almost never make jam due to the high sugar content. But low sugar jams allow the fruit to really stand out compared to your usual jam recipes that often call for 7 cups of sugar. It’s pretty tasty. But I’m embarrassed to admit that I think my low sugar pectin was too old. It had a brownish coloring to it. I didn’t notice it when I made my jam. But I realized the color was off when I opened up a new pectin container.
Cranberry Sauce
I’ve never eaten homemade cranberry sauce before. But I often read about how much better it is than store-bought. So I gave it a try this season. First off, wear an apron if you decide to make cranberry sauce! After the berries begin to boil, they start to pop. And with those pops, come a few splashes! Derp! I had several recipes for sauce, but I went with a whole berry version instead of just the gel. The recipe called for orange zest and cinnamon sticks. Other recipes use spices and also a bunch of sugar. I ended up adding 2.5 cups of raw sugar compared to the 4 cups that some recipes use. So yeah, it is a little tart, especially with the orange zest added too.
The directions say to remove the sauce by running a butter knife or spatula around the inside of the jar, then tipping the contents out onto a plate. So I was expecting to get a “log” of cranberry sauce, just like canned store bought. But it didn’t work that way at all. Instead, it all dumped out into a pile. Maybe I didn’t cook it long enough? I thought it had reached the jelling stage since the sauce was “sheeting” off of my spoon. It is gloopy in consistency and still tastes good, even though a little tart. We’ve been adding it to yogurt which is a delightful way to eat it.
Recipe from Melissa K. Norris’ Everything Worth Preserving.
Want to start canning? See our blog for all of our canning recipes.
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Try Our Beef and Vegetable Stew Canning Recipe
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