Canned and jarred foods are extremely prevalent in our lives; think about the jam you spread on toast or that sauce you bought for spaghetti. Have you ever though about the jarring and canning recipes, methods, and history?
Canning in glass containers has been around since 1809, when French confectioner and brewer, Nicolas Appert, developed a method of sealing food in jars.ย Since then, the method has exploded. We now jar everything! The list is endless: kimchi, sauerkraut, hot sauce, pickles, spaghetti sauce, pesto, and more. Next time you walk through the store, take a look at the center and refrigerated aisles. Jarred and canned food make up many items on the grocery store shelves.
Though we still rely on canning and jarring, many families lost the art of doing it at home. For this Thursdayโs โEmily Recommends,โ we thought we would recommend easy recipes for some of our favorite jarred items. While we cannot leave home, we should try a new hobby! Letโs move on from bread baking everyone!
10 Jarring and Canning Recipes
Each recipe listed below represents a different type of jarred or canned food. We wanted to show the abundance of these products available at the store and how you can make them at home. We hope you enjoy these different canning recipes and ideas!ย
1. Jelly: Pomegranate Jellyย
Starting our list is jelly! Growing up, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were a large portion of my daily food intake. Jelly is easily one of my favorite condiments available on sandwiches. What exactly is jelly?
We define jelly as a fruit spread made from pectin, sugar, and fruit juice. We boil those three ingredients together until the mixture gels and thickens. When set, jelly is transparent, glossy, and wobbly.ย ย
While growing up, Concord Grape Jelly was the beeโs knees. I couldnโt get enough of it. Now that I have taken up jelly making, I enjoy making different jellies based on the season. Right now, I am all about pomegranate jelly. The jelly is both tart and sweet giving it the perfect balance to add on top of toast, English muffins, and biscuits. Also, add it into a sandwich or between layers of a cake!ย
Try our recipe for pomegranate jelly by following our link to the blog post!ย
Pomegranate Jelly Is an Easy Canning Recipe for Beginners!
2. Sauerkraut: German Pickled Cabbageย
We know sauerkraut as a German dish made by finely chopping and fermenting cabbage. Typically, we make sauerkraut by pickling and then placing cabbage into jar containers for proper storage until it fully ferments.ย
When ready to consume, sauerkraut keeps the crunchy texture of the cabbage. The flavor is wonderfully strong, sour, and pungent. It will kick you in the back of the throat in the best way possible. Growing up, I learned to love eating sauerkraut on top of hotdogs with a bit of mustard from my father.ย
Sauerkraut is easy to make in a mason jar. You can check out the Minimalist Bakerโs popular recipe for sauerkraut. Dana, who runs the blog, uses red cabbage to get a bright and delicious sauerkraut recipe. YUM!ย
A Bright Red Sauerkraut
3. Jam: Strawberry Jam
While jelly is transparent and made from the juice of the fruit, jam is a thick spread made from fruit juice, fruit (chopped, smushed, or pureed), and sugar. When making jam, you retain the fruit pulp making it cloudy in the center.ย
Like jelly, jam is wonderful when spread on or in different baked goods. I love jam and butter on toast for a quick meal in the mornings.ย
Try Kyleeโs recipe for strawberry jam from her blog Kylee Cooks. Her recipe for this small batch strawberry jam has only good reviews. Perfect for those starting in the kitchen. You wonโt make more than you can eat!ย
Delicious Small Batch Strawberry Jam.
4. Jangajji: Maneul Jangajji (Korean Pickled Garlic)
Jangajji is a style of pickle found in South Korea, using soy sauce, vinegar, and other ingredients. While kimchi promotes the controlled growth of bacteria and microorganisms, the pickling process of jangajji slows the growth of these microorganisms.ย
You can easily pickle any vegetable and make jangajji. The most famous outside of Korea is maneul jangajji, Korean pickled garlic. Made using vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar, the garlic is kept in jars to pickle for a few weeks. Then, you have a crunchy, sweet, spicy, and salty treat to enjoy with your barbecue!ย
Check out our recipe by following the link to our blog post!ย ย
An Easy Jarring and Canning Recipe: Korean Maneul Jangajji.
5. Pasta Sauce: Basil Pesto Sauce
We know pesto as an Italian sauce made from blending basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, salt, and a hard cheese. Bright green, this sauce tastes like the essence of summer. It is summer in a jar!ย
Unlike the sauerkraut and kimchi jarred alternatives, you can make fresh pesto and eat it right away. But, basil can also be made ahead and stored properly in containers for long periods.ย
We recommend trying Nicholeโs recipe from her blog The Salty Marshmallow (what a fun name, right?!). Her recipe is rich and beautifully fresh in flavor. For those wanting to jar her recipe, simply sterilize your jars ahead of making the recipe. Keep in mind, different types of jars have different sealing methodsโdonโt forget to follow the sealing instructions that are usually on the packaging!
Beautifully Green Pesto Sauce
6. Kimchi: Korean Pickled Napa Cabbage
Kimchi is the Korean national dish and is often described as the โKorean Sauerkraut.โ A stable in every household, kimchi is made through fermenting vegetables in a seasoned brine mixture. The most famous version of kimchi outside of Korea is napa cabbage kimchi. Kimchi can also be made from radish, cucumber, mustard leaf, and more!ย
South Koreans store kimchi in specific containers and refrigerators made for that purpose. Outside of Korea, we often jar kimchi in glass and plastic containers to be sold in grocery stores.ย
For this post, we are recommending JinJooโs recipe. For those who have seen my other blog posts for my favorite Korean bloggers and doenjang jjigae for every type of cook, you will know Kimchimari is one of my FAVORITE blogs. Her food is so good! Her kimchi does not disappoint either!ย
Beautifully Made Kimchi
7. Nut Butters: Almond Butter
We know nut butters as food pastes made from grinding whole nuts until they become spreadable. You can have โcrunchyโ and โsmoothโ versions of these butters. Crunchy involves maintaining little pieces of the nut in the spread. On the other hand, the smooth version involves grinding the nuts until no pieces remain intact.ย
We have an abundance of nut butter types: almond, peanut, and pistachio are just a few examples.ย
Almond butter is creamy and rich in flavor. Kate, who runs the blog Cookie and Kate, has one of the most delicious versions of almond butter. She adds cinnamon, vanilla extract, and maple syrup to make the almond butter taste decadent. Try her recipe by following the links to her website and blog post!ย
Kateโs Almond Butter Contains Delicious Flavors Like Vanilla!
8. Marmalade: Orange Marmalade
Marmalade, which is typically made from citrus fruits, is similar to jam and jelly. While jam uses pieces of the fruit and jelly uses the fruit juice, marmalade uses the entire fruit including the rind.
Marmalade tends to be extremely thick as it consists of the entire fruit and thus has a lot of natural pectin.ย
Megganโs recipe from her blog Culinary Hill Test Kitchen is bright, rich, and sweet. She goes step-by-step to teach you how to make her wonderful recipe. She makes the process easy for those who have never made marmalade. I keep coming back over and over!
9. Pickles: Pickled Cucumber
You make a pickled cucumber, known as a pickle in some areas and a gherkin in other areas, by preserving and fermenting a cucumber in brine, vinegar, or other solutions. People speculate that the first pickle was developed for the workers building the Great Wall of China. Who would have thought, right?ย
Pickles are crunchy and sour. Depending on the brand and pickling process, your pickled cucumbers could be spicy, sweet, salty, or all of the above at one time!ย
Beyond cucumbers, you can pickle many different vegetables and fruit. Examples include watermelon rind, okra, and green beans.
For those new to canning and jarring, the process of sterilizing and boiling over large pots of different liquids can seem like a lot. Sommer, who runs A Spicy Perspective, has developed a recipe that takes out the canning process. These pickles ARE TO DIE FOR.
10. Drink: Kombucha
Kombucha is a fermented black or green tea drink. Like pickles, kombucha is likely from China.ย
Different juices, spices, and flavorings are often added to make different versions of the highly popular beverage. Touted as a health drink, kombucha contains a lot of healthy probiotics and antioxidants, though the commercialized versions contain a lot of sugar as well.
Typically, kombucha is jarred after the processing and fermentation process. The cooking and jarring techniques for kombucha are more advanced than the others on the list as there are certain safety precision necessary to make this delicious and healthy drink!ย
As I know there are safety concerns and have not yet made kombucha on my own, I will not recommend a recipe or blog post. Though kombucha deserves a shout out on our jarring and canning recipe list, I cannot confidently and honestly say I have tried a recipe like I have to those listed above. Once I do, I will add to this list!ย
Do You Have Any Jarring or Canning Recipes You Would Like to Share?ย
If you try different jarring and canning recipes, you may need some supplies! Below is a list of items I recommend to help get you started!
We would love to hear all about your favorite jarring and canning recipes. Leave a recipe for us to try in the comments below or email us atย [email protected]. You can also follow us at @carvingajourney onย Instagram,ย Twitter,ย Facebook, andย Pinterest.ย Finally, you can subscribe to our blog by joining our mailing list. We hope you enjoyed our list of jarring and canning recipes!
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