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Preserving Food, Pressure Canning, Freezing and Canning Vegetables and Fruit
The best tips for preserving food at home by either canning or freezing. Learn how to freeze or pressure-can extra produce from your vegetable garden, and how to make juice, jam or jelly from fruit.
Fruits which are ripened on the vine are best for freezing.
Of the frozen fruits, strawberries are by far the most popular.
Red raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries are runners up as appealing fruit crops to grow and preserve.
Freezing captures the quality of fresh fruits and vegetables better than any other method of preservation.
Freezing fruit is very easy; usually the fruit is simply packed in air-tight containers, labeled, and placed in the freezer.
If the fruit is dirty and needs to be rinsed, be sure to allow it to dry before packing in containers.
If you know that the fruit is clean, it is best to pack it without washing or rinsing.
Dry-packed fruit is much easier to remove from the container, and allows for easy removal of a portion of the contents.
If you pack fruit wet, it will freeze together in a hard lump, and you will need to thaw the entire contents of the container.
Preserving Vegetables by Pressure Canning
The variety of fruit or vegetables selected for preserving food is very important.
Some varieties are better for eating raw, others are ideal for canning, while still others are top quality frozen.
The time of harvesting is especially important for vegetables that pass very quickly from the just-ripe to the overripe stage.
Examples are peas, corn, snap beans, lima beans, soybeans, and asparagus.
Starchy vegetables like corn, peas, and limas should be harvested just before they are fully mature, when they are at their peak of sweetness and tenderness.
Even a day or two beyond the perfect harvesting time may mean the vegetables will become starchy and less sweet.
Other vegetables do not require quite so close timing.
All vegetable due to their low acid content, will need to be pressure canned.
Follow pressure canning instructions that come with your canner carefully; it is most important that the food preparation and canning procedure be followed exactly in order to ensure safe wholesome results.
Preserving Food
Canning Fruit
How to Can Fruit Using Water Bath Canning
As a general rule for preserving food, the best stage of maturity for canning is reached when fruits and vegetables are at their best for eating.
For best flavor, the fruit should be as ripe as possible without becoming mushy or overripe.
Follow the instructions for canning individual fruits that come with your canner.
See specific instructions and details on our page all about canning fruit.
Making Jam and Jelly
Jams and can be made using fresh or frozen berries or fruit. Jelly can be made using fresh or frozen fruit, or it can be made from fresh or frozen fruit juice or puree.
If fruits were not harvested at the appropriate time and have become too soft, the ones not spoiled can be made into puree or juice, and then frozen.
When thawed, purees and juice can be used for making ice cream, syrup, jams, or jellies.
If you don't have time to make jam during the berry harvest season, you can easily turn some of your frozen berries or juice into jam during the fall or winter months.
Guidelines for Freezing Vegetables
One of the advantages to freezing vegetables is the simplicity of the procedure.
For example, when you harvest more green beans than your family can eat you can blanch and freeze the extras in just a few minutes.
Canning is a more complicated procedure, and you won't want to go through the procedure for just a small amount of produce.
Preserving Food
How to Freeze Green Beans
Select young, tender, stringless beans.
Wash thoroughly, snip off ends.
Cut in 1 ½ inch pieces or slice lengthwise for julienne style (French).
Small green beans (3-4 inches long) can be left whole.
Blanch in boiling water: French style for 2 minutes; cut, 2 ½ minutes; whole, 3 minutes.
After blanching, chill in ice water 5 minutes.
Drain.
Pack in freezer containers or bags, allowing a half inch of space at the top.
How to Freeze Carrots
Select mild-flavored, young carrots.
Remove carrot tops, scrape tender carrots or pare older ones.
Leave small-sized carrots whole.
Cut other sizes into ¼ inch slices or dice.
Blanch in boiling water: Sliced or diced carrots, 3 minutes; whole, 4 ½ minutes.
After blanching, chill in ice water for 5 minutes.
Drain.
Pack into containers, allowing a half inch space at the top of the container.
How to Freeze Sweet Corn
Choose ears with tender, plump kernels and sweet, thin milk.
If milk is too thick and starchy freeze the corn cream style.
Husk ears and remove cornsilk.
Corn is best if blanched while still on the cob.
Blanch in boiling water: small ears for 6 minutes; medium-sized ears, 8 minutes; large ears for 10 minutes.
Afterward, chill in ice water at least 15 minutes.
Drain.
When preserving food, for whole kernel corn: cut kernels from blanched cob deep enough to get whole kernels.
For cream-style corn: cut from blanched cob at about center of kernels, then scrape with a knife to remove juice and heart of kernel.
Pack corn on the cob individually in moisture proof wrap and then pack into large, rectangular container and seal.
Freeze pack cut or cream-style corn in containers, leaving half inch headroom.
