Canning home-cooked meals rather than keeping jars of individual ingredients, can be a viable alternative to MREs. Best of all you can make them yourself, at a much lower cost than the processed pouches sold in-store and online.
Yet canning home-cooked meals and keeping them safe to eat for 5 years or more takes more than just slopping some leftovers into a jar and twisting the lid tight.
There’s some food science and chemistry required to make sure the meals in the jar will remain safe to eat for years to come.
Sterilization is crucial for safe canning, ensuring that jars, rings, and utensils are properly sanitized to prevent contamination. This can be achieved through boiling jars in water for 10 minutes or dry sterilizing them in a 250°F oven for 15 minutes. Proper sealing is key: Mason jars can be reused, but lids with sealing gaskets should be replaced after each use to maintain the integrity of the seal.
For acidic foods, such as tomatoes and fruits, a water bath canning method works well. However, low-acid foods like meat require pressure canning to kill harmful bacteria such as botulism. Pressure canning at different altitudes requires adjusting the pressure level, from 10 lbs for low altitudes up to 15 lbs for higher elevations, to ensure safety.
Beef Stew
Most red meat stews are canned the same way. You could easily replace beef with scraps of venison, lamb, goat, or chunks of pork shoulder.
With a stew meant for long-term canning, it’s best to use tougher cuts of meat, which will soften during the pressure canning process.
You can use ground meat if that’s all you’ve got, but the stew in the jar 5 years later usually has a grainy texture.r.
Ingredients
2 lbs. cubed beef or venison- 2 large red potatoes, cubed
- 1 cup diced onions
- 4 cups beef stock
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp dried thyme and rosemary
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbs of vegetable oil
Instructions
1. Salt the meat and sear in a hot Dutch oven over medium heat with the oil. Toss occasionally until the meat has a nice crust and there are brown bits in the bottom of the pan.
2. Put the tomato paste in the pot and toss for two minutes. Then pour the beef stock into the pot and scrape the bottom to deglaze the fond.
3. Add all the other ingredients except the minced garlic and turn the heat to low. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes or until the carrots are toothsome, but not soft.
Related: How to Prepare Medicinal Pickled Garlic
4. While the stew simmers, finish preparing the jars and pressure canner.
5. Stir the minced garlic into the stew mixture and turn off the heat.
6. Carefully load the stew into the jars and place the lids with rings.
7. Process the jars in the pressure canner at 10 pounds for 90 minutes.
Spaghetti Sauce
I recommend growing your own tomatoes, rather than buying them from the supermarket. When you grow your own tomatoes, you get fresher, more flavorful tomatoes that are free from harmful chemicals and pesticides.
Plus, homegrown tomatoes can be harvested at their peak ripeness, which supermarket varieties often lack, all while saving money.
Ingredients
6 lbs. tomatoes, blanched and diced- 1 large carrot chopped
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbs dried basil
- 1 tbs dried oregano
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- salt and pepper
Instructions
1. Prepare the tomatoes while sterilizing the jars and canning equipment.
2. Add half the oil to a pan on medium-low heat, and slowly sweat the carrots to activate their natural sugars.
3. After 3 to 5 minutes the carrots will take on a little color and you can add the onions. Allow to sweat for 2 to 3 minutes to soften and activate the onion fragrance.
4. Add the tomatoes, three of the cloves of minced garlic, and the herbs. Allow the sauce to simmer for 10 to 12 minutes for the flavors to meld.
5. Add the last 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the 2 remaining cloves of minced garlic.
6. Pour the sauce into the sterilized jars allowing an inch of headroom. Then place the lid and tighten the rings.
7. Slowly lower the sauce into the boiling water bath. Allow it to process for 10 to 15 minutes before removing and allowing it to cool undisturbed for 2 hours.
Mixed Berries Jam
Mixed berries and fruits can be preserved using the water bath method with a splash of lemon juice. I prefer foraging for berries for this recipe since they’re fresher and free from preservatives and pesticides. I especially enjoy adding this berry to my jam—it’s illegal to grow, but foraging it is perfectly fine.
The trick is to pack them in syrup and adjust the PH with just the right amount of lemon juice. I find that a light syrup does the best job of preserving the natural flavor and texture of the berries.
With lemon juice, you can then preserve the jars with the water bath method. I prefer to pressure can for a heavy syrup, just for the peace of mind of knowing that there aren’t any bacteria exploiting the high sugar content.
Ingredients
12 cups of assorted berries strawberries, blueberries, cherries, gooseberries or raspberries- 2 cups of white granulated sugar
- 4 cups of Water
- 4 tbs of lemon juice
Instructions
1. While the jars are sterilized in the oven, wash the berries and remove any stems. Cut large berries into roughly 1-inch chunks.
2. Prepare the syrup by dissolving the sugar in water and stirring gently until it dissolves into a clear liquid. Allow to simmer for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Remove the syrup from the heat and stir in the berries. Allow to cool for 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Add lemon juice and stir gently to combine.
5. Pour the mixed berries into pint-size jars and process using the water bath canning technique for 10 minutes. Then remove the jars and allow them to cool undisturbed for 2 hours.
Other Home-Cooked Meal Ideas for Jars
The above recipes give you a guide for how to preserve home-cooked meals in jars that will stay safe to eat for five years or more.
Once you’ve got the hang of these two cooking and canning methods, you can try some of the following recipe suggestions.
Chicken Soup
When canning home-cooked chicken soup, I find its best to leave any sort of noodles or dumplings out.
They tend to get mushy when processed and are meant to be belly fillers. You can simply prepare whatever noodles, or dumplings you want when you open the jar later.
If you really do want to add a starch to the canned home-cooked chicken soup, I’d go with wild rice. It’s durable enough to handle the canning process.
Then pressure can the jars of chicken soup for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.
Bean & Ham Soup
Bean and ham soup is a hearty home-cooked meal you can keep in a jar for years. You can also err on the side of saltiness, as the beans will gradually absorb the salt over time. This further helps inhibit bacterial growth.
However, even with the added salt, the acidity of bean and ham soup is too low for water bath canning. If you want it to last up to 5 years, you’ll need to pressure can it for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.
American Goulash
Even with the acidity of the tomato sauce, you still need to pressure can home-cooked American goulash to ensure any bacterial presence in the meat is 100% sterilized.
It also works best to leave the noodles out of the jar, as they become flabby and soft. Rather you can pour the sauce over freshly prepared noodles when you open the jar later. This will give you a greater volume of sauce to preserve.
Regarding the meat component, I substitute ground beef for small chunks of eye of round or diced chuck roast. They tenderize perfectly after searing and canning, without the grainy texture ground beef sometimes gets when canned.
Instead of relying on MREs or overhyped survival food buckets with their meager serving sizes and inflated claims, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I turned to this guide to craft my own survival food solutions.
With over 100 recipes tailored for long-term storage without refrigeration, it became my go-to resource to create meals that truly satisfied and sustained me during challenging situations. So, rather than relying on inflated promises and underwhelming servings, I took charge of my prepping by preparing real, nourishing food using this invaluable guide.
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this was a good article. we can hamburger and chicken, so now we have some good reciepes to try. now that the stores are getting christmas decor out ask the store managers about deals in the canning supplies so they have room for their decor. dollar general shot us a deal 2 years ago of penny’s on the dollar. 12 pack of jars for 3.00 and lids for .50 a box. it doesn’t hurt to ask. articles like this are very informative and get the prepper juices to flowing. i’m sure there will be some kind of negative comments about the article but just ignore them and keep up the good articles. even old articles are good to re-print as a refresher for us and helpful to new preppers.
These methods are a lot of work for single guys, maybe different for those with a family to feed. I like the pre-made survival food that last upwards to 25+ years.
Yes it cost money for this food, not all of us are prone to canning in our skill group.
Each of us can learn new skills but we are preppers but not everyone is a cook. Even though we all have to eat each day.
Trapping small game and hunting that deer for food sounds good until we see there are many others who want the same food source in competition.
How much of what we visualize or fantasize is a true picture of what we will actually realize is the real thing when it comes to our door step in life?
But most survival food is Mac n cheese, potato soup and oatmeal. Just buy that stuff in bulk and just jar or bag seal it.
A lot of the grocery store stuff like that is GMO and or Bioengineered food product, so buyer beware, cheap could be deadly for our health.
Manny, if you manage to have a successful hunt and bag a deer, as a single guy, aren’t you going to want a way to preserve what you won’t eat right away?
Canning is not difficult, but it can be tedious, and it takes time.
The writer left out a couple things that I think ought to be included, especially for people new to canning. You need to wash the jars, lids, and bands in hot, soapy water. Sanitizing jars isn’t necessary if the processing time exceeds 10 minutes. If I’m canning something where I’m packing the food hot, such as the beef stew recipe provided, after washing my jars, I fill them with hot water and put them in the canner with hot water. They stay hot while I’m heating the food.
Filling the jars is easier if you have a canning funnel, especially with hot foods. With canning, you also need to be cognizant of headspace, which is the gap between where the food and liquid is and the lid. Most meat dishes call for ibe-inch headspace. Most jams and jellies call for 1/4 inch headspace.
Meat can be raw packed, meaning put chunks of meat in jar, wipe rim to make sure it’s clean, cap your jar, and process, 75 minutes pints, 90 minutes quarts. You can add salt before processing. Use canning or sea salt, not iodized stuff. They say you can put a pound of meat in a pint. When I have raw packed, the closest I’ve come to that is 14 ounces.
Dry beans like kidney beans, black beans, or navy beans take the same processing time, so if you do a canner load of meat and beans, it’d be easy enough to turn that into chili.
A great website for canning info is the National Center for Home Food Preservation, https://nchfp.uga.edu.
For a time when I was living alone, it was great to can meals in a jar. I like a nice roast beef dinner, but there was no way I could the entire roast, and I didn’t always want to freeze everything. Making myself a roast beef dinner in a pint jar with meat, potatoes, onions, and carrots, raw packed and adding beef broth to a 1-inch headspace allowed me to enjoy it for one or two meals and keeping the rest on the shelf.
Thanks for your great detail. I cannot seem to find any info on how to just “seal” jars with freshly made hot stew, etc. I am assuming after boiling the jars to sterlize them, i can just put the hot food in and then boil them for 10 minutes in a pan of water to seal the jars? I am in the UK and we don’t have pressure canners and equipment really. We have jars with lugs on the lids which create a vacuum as they cool. I don’t really want to can raw food in a water bath because 3 hours uses too much fuel. Any advice would be very much appreciated. 🙏🏾
Good article for people that can and will do in the SHTF period in America.
Like what was said Tuesday, “The simple act of throwing money at “survival” does NOT equate to preparedness.
When the dung hits the fan, all the money in the world and worth jack as far as the zombie apocalypse is concerned.
In other words… If you don’t have the SKILLS to put your million dollar off-grid war chest to use… you’re no better off than the guy with the fifty buck bug out bag.”
Off topic;
The Trump shooter has a lot of unanswered questions about what really happened. Who is funding all these mass shooters since Biden-Harris started their campaign against the 2A?
Why did we have the George Floyd riots?
Tim Walz is Minnesota’s 41st Governor, caused the Floyd problem by authoritarian rule. Floyd worked as a security bouncer and had hard time with employment that he went back on drugs leading up to the police involvement.
Walz is ingrained into the Islamist American revolution and a Chinese CCP conspirator to remake America as Obama said he would do.
This Harris-Walz ticket is what you Demoncrates are going to vote for?
I like the chicken soup recipe.
What?
In this “Matrix World” we can have both liberal Lisa and conservative Lisa. As in the same theme of those liberal coexist bumper stickers years ago popular BS message was.
Today as in past history, cultures such as Christian and Islamist don’t coexist. The Islamic Ritual slaughter religion, goes after infidels, even if they convert they still die.
These people, the illegal open border crowd of over 50 million are taking over our America. Obama’s 3 & 4th terms in office are going to happen with Harris-Walz ticket. This November 5th election is for the God inspired America’s soul for better or worse this maybe the free election in America.
There is poverty in many countries, like the liberals in red states don’t leave their liberal politics behind these illegals do the same. Harris-Walz give comfort to them that get free everything to vote and guess what happens next?
Yes there are Asian countries that do eat cat, dogs and other disgusting foods we Americans won’t do.
How will you vote in this November election or will you stay home and let an illegal vote for you?
Because this is about Good and Evil
When Godly people who fear and respect God Rule , then you have Blessings
When Evil rules ( obama, clintons, bidens, ) all those put in by them to rule , like the Godless who choose evil and lust over Self Control
They dont Know God , and theirfore doe evil to satisfy themselves, and thier fleshly desires
Do the research , see exacqly who put this evil in place and what is there now
All Anti God, Anti selfcontrol , never content , never satisfied , just like sodom and Gommorrah , Evil is in charge
But God is in control over all , and will be The True God , always watch isreal , this is the true test
the rest is just a Game of Good against Evil Testing the Hearts of Mankind to see whom they will choose .
As the bible says , Everyone will choose for themself whom they will serve God or Money or Idols or flesh or self , or something other than God .
But there will be given a FREE CHOICE TO ALL
God is Just , Loving , Free, and knows beginning to end
I like what Lisa has written, we are being not told the real backstory to what the news media has been telling us.
My questions is how do these survival food companies really know their foods last around 25 years. These prepper articles of canning and jar cooking methods can really last to five years?
Believe most of our home prep food is more likely good for one to two seasons and really depends on the storage location, temperature, it also depends on if we are novice or a longtime experienced prepper.
Take these articles and figure what will work in my situation as not everyone lives in locations to have a root cellar to store foods, depending on soil conditions to build a root cellar.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: USDA says that nowadays you MUST pressure-can tomatoes, because the varieties common nowadays are less acidic. Otherwise, you risk botulism!
That’s why you ALWAYS add lemon juice to each jar, to make up the difference. However, YOU should do what makes YOU comfortable!
Hi, in some of the recipes, you don’t give jar size used. That is very important, as quarts take longer than pints to process. Please add what jar size you used for each recipe. Thanks, they look really good.
Pints 75 mins, Qts 90 min with any kind of meat.
I agree, Sandie. The writer also does not say how many jars needed for each recipe. I know it can vary greatly, but it helps to have a benchmark.
If you grow cherry tomatoes you can keep them for an extended time by dehydrating them and then gringing them into a powder. They store easily and are great for adding to soups or stews. If you need tomato paste or sauce just add water until they are at the right consistency. The bags of powder do not take up much room in the fridge or freezer and make for easier meal prep.
Make the stuff hot enough for long enough, dry enough, and salty enough, you should be just fine.
Oh and store in a cool dry place away from light.
For the past 5-6 years have followed this site faithfully. Only believe some! 2018 Moms passed at 85 and never owned a pressure cooker! And canned all in water bath. Won’t argue the point with anyone ( to each his own)!! I’m 74 now. Not always up to cooking everyday so last week opened up a quart of beef vegetable soup! All’s well and still canning when I can in water bath! I remember her words well! Always take your time and be clean about your food!! Talked about a pressure canner & she frowned!! Her words ring in my ears! ( YOU THINK DURING THE WAR WHEN FOOD WAS SCARCE & NO ONE HAD MONEY PEOPLE PUT WHAT FEW NICKELS AND DIMES INTO BUYING A BIG OLE’ POT! ) Stil put up beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes when I hit a sale! Meats still freeze and water can!! Still save whatever you can however you can cause the BAD IS COMING PEOPLE!! GOD HELP US!!!
I thank the people that run this site to let us speak freely.
And voice our thoughts and opinions.
If you do not mined .
I watched the debate of Trump and Harris.
I noticed that every thing she said a bout the problems of this country.
Are the problems Harris and Biden created to make like this country really needs there help to solve what they created.
How back words dose it get,
And now they set it up hopping she gets elected.
They set the ground work for this when Biden stole the Election.
And it stared with Covied 19.
To keep the American people confused,
Now every one that took off there rose colored glass can see all this time.
What there setting our country up for,
To turn the United States in to a 3rd world country.
And the first thing to to is destroy the economy., And and our military.
Destroy all jobs, and replace the American people And drive us out of our own country.
And destroy all the freedoms that this country was founded on.
And stop President Trump from taking power if elected .
And Jim Ricker,s says that Trump will be President..
He will take power once he is sworn in as President of the United State.
They may have to bring in the US Marines to i force it and drag those dem rats out of the white house.
Or the American People will.
Thank you
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