Pressure Canning Soup Recipes
08. November 2021Home canned soups are a great pantry staple to stock up on for the winter months. Many canners prep their soups and meats in the fall when they are done harvesting from the garden or orchard. Pop a jar open for a quick late night dinner or an easy instant lunch meal. Meats, vegetables, and low acid foods need pressure canned. It is unsafe to can soup in a water bath canner (although there are two tomato soup recipes on our list below that can be water bath canned). All other soup recipes on our list below must be canned in a pressure canner. If you don’t have a pressure canner, you can always make a batch of soup fresh or freeze for later.
A few safety notes:
- Be sure to follow the USDA and National Center for Home Food Preservation’s guidelines on canning soups. Follow the usage directions for your pressure canner.
- You cannot add certain ingredients to soups for safety reasons. Do NOT add noodles, pasta, rice, dairy, flour, cornstarch, Clear Jel® (unless Clear Jel was specifically tested for a recipe), or other thickening agents to soup. These items can be added later when you open your finished jars to serve and eat.
- While you can’t add thickening ingredients to jars for canning, you can cheat by thickening home canned soup with a few vegetables naturally. Potatoes and beans will naturally thicken soups since they release a lot of starch during processing. Okra also naturally thickens liquids and makes a soup richer and velvety.
- Dried beans and peas need fully rehydrated prior to canning. According to the National Centers for Food Preservation “If dried beans or peas are used, they must first be fully rehydrated (for each cup of dried beans or peas add 3 cups of water, boil 2 minutes, remove from heat, soak 1 hour, heat to boiling, drain).”
- Meats must be fully cooked for pressure canned soup recipes.
- Blended, pureed, and creamed soups are not recommended for canning (unless it is a lab-tested recipe from a reputable source). USDA safety directions are guaranteed when you have chunks of food with heated water passing through them. Pureed soup would be thicker and denser, so that would void their normal processing times and prevent heat from penetrating the center of the jar. There are, however, a few tested recipes from Ball and Bernardin that are pureed: Pea Soup and Carrot Soup. Otherwise, you may can chunked soups and puree once the jar is opened for serving.
- Do not can soups in large half-gallon jars. Use pints or quarts only.
- Do not pack jars too solidly. Evenly add solids to jars first, then add the liquid. The ratio should be half liquid and half solid ingredients with one inch of head space. Ingredients will swell during pressure canning, so don’t be worried that the final soup will be too watery.
- Not all vegetables are safe to can in soup either. There are no tested recipes for broccoli, pumpkin or winter squash, or cauliflower. Avoid these ingredients as they are unsafe because they can pack together or have ingredients that interfere with safe processing. You can always add these vegetables to a an opened jar before serving.
- All root vegetables need peeled to reduce bacterial load. Vegetables should be prepared and cooked per the USDA’s guidelines on “Hot Packing” . If there is not a separate canning recommendation for a vegetable listed there, do not include it.
- Do not fully cook soup before adding to jars. Boil all ingredients for 5 minutes, then add to jars. The cooking process will be completed during canning.
For further reading, Schneider Peeps has a great run down on safely canning soup at home. I also highly recommend Angi Schneider’s book “Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond.” Angi’s recipes follow safe canning guidelines from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Complete Guide to Home Canning as well as other sources like Ball® and Bernadin® canning companies. All of Angi’s recipes are based on lab-tested canning recipes and procedures. Any substitutions or alterations were made using published safety guidelines for altering canning recipes. What I LOVE most about this book is that it covers how to convert your family’s favorite soup recipes to safe canning recipes. Please read my book review on this book and buy a copy for your canning library.
Meat & Poultry Based Soups
Our Custom Modern Black & White rectangle canning labels are perfect for quart jars of soup. There’s plenty of room to add an ingredient list with directions on what else can be added to the soup after opening the jar.
Chicken Soup
Our homemade chicken soup is a blank canvas for simple weeknight meals. Open a jar of this base mix and add rice, pasta, dumplings, orzo, or fresh vegetables. This basic chicken soup can be the beginning of so many different flavor profiles. There have been many busy weeknights when it has solved my dinner dilemmas. Start planning your canning project now as comforting soup awaits you. Get the Chicken Soup pressure canning recipe on our blog.
- Southwestern Chicken Soup
- Chicken Mexican Soup
- Chicken & Corn Chowder
- Chicken Tortilla Soup
- Chicken Pot Pie Filling
- White Bean Chicken Chili
- Turkey & Vegetable Soup
- Split Pea Soup with Ham
- 15 Bean & Ham Soup
- Habitant Soup with Ham
- Zuppa Toscana Soup Base with Pork
- Home Canned Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup
- Vegetable Beef Soup
- Beef Pot Roast
- Beef Stew
- Beef Stew with Vegetables
- Meatballs in Tomato Juice
- Goulash
- Diane's Stuffed Pepper Soup
- Diane's Roasted Turkey Chili Soup
- Clam Chowder
Stocks and Broths
How to Make Bone Broth
I traditionally make bone broth to freeze or use fresh to best maintain its superior health benefits. However, it can also be pressure canned for long term shelf storage. Bone broth has an extended cook time which helps pull gelatin and minerals out of animal bones. Bone broth is different than stock which has a much shorter cook time. The resulting bone broth liquid is a “super food” with all sorts of health benefits. Read our blog post on How to Make Chicken Bone Broth. For pressure canning shelf-stable jars of broth, follow the directions for your pressure canner. Process pints for 20 minutes and quarts for 25 minutes (adjust for altitude if needed).
Vegetable Soups
While vegetables and low acid foods that need pressure canned, there are two tomato soup recipes on our list below that can be processed in a water bath canner. All other soup recipes on our list must be canned in a pressure canner. If you don’t have a pressure canner, you can always make a batch of soup fresh or freeze for later.
- Homemade Vegetable Soup
- Alton's Garden Vegetable Soup
- Spicy Tomato Vegetable Soup
- French Onion Soup
- Basic Tomato Soup
- Homemade Tomato Soup
- Vine-Fresh Tomato Soup (Water Bath Canning Recipe)
- Tomato Soup Concentrate (Water Bath Canning Recipe)
- Zesty Tomato Soup
- Asparagus Soup
- Pea Soup
- Carrot Soup
Chili & Beans
Some may wonder why you would can your own beans when you can purchase canned beans relatively cheap from the store. Well, dried beans are still less expensive than store bought cans. You can also eliminate waste and be in control of what’s in the jar. It’s nice to have home canned beans on hand for the times when you forget or don’t have time to soak and cook dried beans. Below are a few basic bean canning recipes so you can add canned beans to meals, as well as a few finished meal jars.
- How to Pressure Can Dried Beans
- Canning Garbanzo Beans or Chickpeas
- Canning Black-Eyed Peas
- Home Canned Chili
- Hearty Chili
- Canner Chili Con Carne
- Rosemary White Bean Soup Starter
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