Pressure Canning Soup Recipes

08. November 2021

Home 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.

Eight mason canning jars filled with home canned vegetable and taco soups. Two jars have custom harvest canning labels on the front | CanningCrafts.com

Our Custom Harvest Canning Labels are the perfect addition to soups and stews canned using your own garden vegetables.

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.

Altitude

Living at a higher altitude affects home canning recipes, just as it does baking recipes. Many people are unaware that they live at a high altitude. If you live at a high altitude, you’ll need to increase either your processing time or processing pressure. Most canning recipes state this info for elevations of 0 to 1,000 feet above sea level. If you aren’t sure what your elevation is, get more info from the National Center for Food Preservation or call your local extension office if unsure.

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.

Three mason canning jars filled with home canned Zuppa Toscana soup. The soup has sausage, bacon, potatoes, kale, garlic, onions, and chicken broth | CanningCrafts.com

Pork & Sausage Based Soups

There’s something very comforting about a salty ham based soup. Cook up a bowl of veggies and add a ham bone and you’ve got yourself a meal! A fan-favorite soup is Zuppa Toscana, commonly referred to as that “Olive Garden” soup. You can find many variations of this soup online and in canning books. Many include ground sausage and bacon, a combo that may seem overkill to some. But it’s easy to modify the amounts of pork you add to this hearty soup.

Rustic soups and stews look great with our Custom Flavor Adventure canning labels .

Beef and Vegetable Stew

Make a batch of hearty Beef and Vegetable Stew and pressure can it for an easy and delicious meal any time of the day. To serve, heat and add a little roux to thicken and add a handful of frozen peas, if desired. We also like to serve over wide egg noodles and with crusty bread and butter.

Stocks and Broths

Pressure canning jars of homemade chicken bone broth | CanningCrafts.com

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).

Four mason canning jars filled with home canned garden vegetable soup | CanningCrafts.com

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.

Two mason canning jars filled with home canned chili. One jar has a custom harvest canning label on the lid. CanningCrafts.com

Our Custom Harvest Canning Labels are the perfect addition to soups and stews canned using your own garden vegetables.

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.

Pressure canning jars of white navy beans | CanningCrafts.com

Preparing Beans for Canning

Having plain canned beans in your pantry is always a great idea. Just think of all the chemicals and waste you can avoid by canning your own beans at home. It makes even more sense for your pocketbook when you consider how much less dried beans cost than store-bought canned beans. I buy dried beans in Bulk from Azure Standard (Affiliate link). Canned beans are a basic staple that I can add to soups or stews. There are a few things to keep in mind when canning beans. They should be rehydrated (soaked overnight or using the quick soak method). Then they are partially cooked to soften before canning. If canning beans on their own, you would fill the jars two-thirds full of beans, then top off with hot liquid until you achieve a 1 inch headspace. Beans will finish cooking in the jars and soak up much of the liquid. If you overfill the jars with beans, they will soak up too much liquid, turn to a big ol’ clump in the jars, and mush a bit too (ask me how I know that :)