A Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Canning

Many of us are planting our summer vegetable gardens with dreams of the bounties our gardens will bring. As we are just getting our seeds and plants in the ground, we are also carefully calculating the outcome of our harvest. You may be planting just enough towers of pole beans or rows of tomatoes to feed you through the summer, but the harvest doesn’t have to end there. 

Vegetable canning is one way to make the harvest last beyond the growing season and even into the next year. Canning is an old method of food preservation that is a time-honored way to preserve your garden veggies. When planting your summer garden this year, plant a little extra for canning. If you don’t have a vegetable garden, head over to your local farm stand or farmer’s market to pick up a bundle of fresh vegetables for canning instead.

Along with freezing, pickling, and fermenting, canning is one of the best ways to preserve your harvest at its peak nutritional quality. Vegetable canning is one of those things that feels intimidating at first, but once you’ve done it a few times, it is actually quite easy.  Whether your favorite vegetable is beans, corn, beets, or anything else, canning allows you to enjoy these veggies long past the harvest date. 

There are basically two kinds of canning methods: water bath canning and pressure canning. Water bath canning is appropriate for high-acid foods and recipes that use an added acid to help preserve and stabilize. This method works for high-acid vegetables such as tomatoes and also for pickles and relishes. Water bath canning should not be used for low-acid or alkaline vegetables, as it can harbor dangerous bacteria. 

Vegetable Canning Supplies for Beginners

Pressure canning is the only processing method that reaches a high enough temperature to safely preserve low-acid vegetables. This method works best for most of your garden veggies. If you want to can your vegetables, you need a pressure canner. A pressure canner is not a pressure cooker. It is a heavy-duty piece of equipment with a vent, a pressure gauge, and screw clamps that is capable of heating foods beyond the point of boiling water to eliminate the bacteria botulism, which can cause severe illness. Low-acid (or alkaline) foods must be processed either with an added acid (such as vinegar) or in a pressure canner to ensure safety. 

You will also need the correct kind of jars. We recommend Ball Jars or Mason Jars, as they are specifically designed to be heated to high temperatures and vacuum sealed. Be sure they have a two-piece lid: one piece is flat with a thin rubber seal on the bottom and the other is a metal ring that screws around the top of the jar. You will also want to have oven mitts and a pair of jar tongs for handling. 

For canning tomatoes, tomato sauce, pickles, or any other vegetable to which you add an acid such as vinegar, you can use the water bath method. For all other vegetables, please use a pressure canner. Feel free to can different vegetables on their own, or to combine varieties of vegetables for beautiful colors and diverse flavors. Until you have some canning experience under your belt, it is always better to use a canning recipe. There are so many different and interesting canning recipes that will preserve the nutrition content and garden-fresh flavors of your favorite vegetables. Try a corn chutney, a garden medley, tomatillo salsa, or some dilly pickles for an interesting twist. Or keep your vegetables preserved separately for future use in recipes or to add to dishes all on their own. Truly, the options are endless here. So, where to begin? We recommend picking your favorite vegetables and then going from there.